Let's look at a map
It all started with this air sensor:
Then I took a look a bit deeper:
I found it really odd that the air quality only plummeted in the past few hours. Due to the overall proximity to the fires, I would have assumed that it had been high for hours earlier.
After looking at that and realizing that PurpleAir also provides access to their sensor network through their website, my next stop was the same area.
I began noticing that there were some peculiar dead areas. You know, exactly where one would expect sensors to be... the eerie silence from surrounding sensors that should have been there.
The Digital Ghost Story
As I dug deeper into the data, a chilling pattern emerged. One by one, sensors in the area had gone dark, leaving digital timestamps of their last gasps: Marquez Knolls went first, silent for 12 hours and 26 minutes. Then MGAC followed suit 4 hours later. Like dominoes falling, Iliff St, Carter's AQI, and Hunting Palisades sensors dropped offline in succession, each timestamp marking the fire's relentless march.
A Map Written in Silence
The remaining active sensor stands as a lone sentinel, its reading of 649 screaming "Hazardous" into the digital void. The graph tells a stark story - a sudden spike from green to purple bars, while smoke plumes are detected to the NNW, NW, and WNW. What's particularly unnerving is how the air quality readings only plummeted in the past few hours. Logic would suggest, given the proximity to the fires, that readings should have been elevated much earlier. But nature rarely follows our expectations, does it?
The Void Speaks
The most telling part of this story isn't in the data we're seeing - it's in the data we're not seeing. Those dead zones, those digital black holes in exactly the places where sensors should be, paint a map of the fire's path more clearly than any satellite imagery could. In the end, these failing sensors have written the story of tonight's fire in their own unique language - the language of silence. Each offline timestamp is a chapter in this unfolding disaster, marking the fire's progress through our community with digital precision. Stay safe, stay indoors, and keep watching those sensors. Sometimes, silence speaks volumes.
In the time since I started writing this another sensor is missing...
Sensor: Lower SMonica Canyon (outside) (OFFLINE)
