In the summer of 2021, Americans across the country looked up and noticed strangely brilliant skies. From Colorado to Virginia, the sun glowed like a hot red disc, and social media feeds filled with photos of blazing orange sunsets. I took pictures of pink, hazy dusks in the Northeast, gawking at the spectacle of them. They seemed like a gift from the planet in a time of global tumult. It was only later, scrolling through headlines from the West coast, that I realized their startling colors were caused by smoke from the wildfires then burning in California and Oregon.