I wonder just how toxic the smoke is from the Gulf oil fires is.

And I don't expect a straight answer from anybody involved either.

We've been given misleading information about everything that's been going on so far. Is this going to be another "We tested the air, and everything is peachy-keen" in Manhattan?

Does anybody have any facts about the burn-off?

so. that's that.

I'd suggest staying indoors with the windows closed if you can smell the smoke particularly strongly. Yes, I know, it's an unfortunate time of year for that and people are going to need fans and good hydration to survive it.

It's really a tossup as to what's worse, the choking smoke or all the benzene that is volatizing into the air from that spill.

I remember a couple of years ago, when they had the big wildfires up in Georgia, over 300 miles away, we could step outside in the morning, and our eyes would be burning. And it looked like fog.

When we finally got the next rain, the bottom of my pool was covered with ash and soot, from what had settled on the pool cage.

This can only be worse due to it's composition.

It's fire season out here in NM and smoke has drifted in and out here over the last week.

My advice stands. If you can smell that smoke, stay indoors, bite the financial bullet and run that AC. It can save your health and life.

My dad lived on the east coast in what I snarkily called "the carport district," full of retirees sitting on lawn furniture in their open carports, TVs set up, because they were either too cheap or too poor to run the AC. I've seen this every month of the year.

My own parents were classier, although just as cheap. They used ceiling fans in every room.

in the deep south without my A/C. I will never understand how my grandparents and the ones who came before them did it. The only thing I can figure is that since they were all farmers and worked out in the fields all day, the house must have felt cool to them, even though the wood stove was burning to cook their meal. I guess everything's relative.

All the windows had metal awnings and they all had heavy, lined curtains that were kept closed during the day. People swore we had AC when we didn't.

At night, an attic fan cooled the place off.

As I recall, it was only miserable during the supper hour. We'd eat supper and flake out in front of the TV until it was pitch dark and we could turn the attic fan on.

That's how we did it.

Now I live in the high desert and an indoor temperature of 90 with a relative humidity of <10% is not that bad if I'm not that ambitious. Again, this place has heavy, lined curtains on all the windows facing south or west and it's only hard to take late in the afternoon and early in the evening, when I'm the least active.

Living without AC can be done, even here in the high desert. I do use an evaporative cooler, though, using it as a vent fan overnight to cool the place down for the following day. Cooling costs me less than twenty bucks a month.

I'm going to get some curtains. Right now I only have mini-blinds in the windows and they do little to keep out the sun. I wish I could get awnings, but the apartment complex I live in won't allow it. I don't have an attic fan, but I do have ceiling fans and they help a little. My power bill runs between $100-$160, so if doing these things can reduce my power bill even by a quarter, it will be worth it.

you can get a fan that fits into them and use it as an exhaust fan to push heat out that window and bring cooler air in via another window overnight. Then close everything down and pull those heavy drapes, especially in windows that admit sunlight.

The exhaust fan will create the effect of cross ventilation where none exists.

This is what I did in Boston and it worked.

year I am wondering if it will be acid rain from the south instead of the usual from Montana.

as diesel exhaust.

BP doesn't give a damn about the people anyway.

Much more so than the exhaust of burning gas, fuel oil, or other hydrocarbon products, because all of the contaminents which are usually removed during refinement are still going to be there, including massive amounts of raw carbon resulting in soot.

I would hope that they're using containment systems for burning, along with catalytic conversion and rapid cooling to detoxify the smoke output.

They just corral a big pool and light it it. Thick, black smoke goes straight up.

Missouri sounds about right.

I figured they were just setting fires out at sea. Ships are probably being diverted away from the fires. I've only smelled the oil a couple of times and it wasn't very strong.