Just Focus On Trying To Breathe

Umpiem on fire

This has been a smoky week. On Thursday last week one of the nine refugee camps along the border caught fire. It’s home to close to 20,000 displaced people, and it’s just 87kms from Mae Sot. It’s currently the dry season here, so the simple wood, bamboo and thatch huts were no match for this raging inferno. Around one quarter of the camp was destroyed with over 4000 people being left homeless. By some amazing stroke of luck, no one died in the fire and only a small handful of people received serious burns. Needless to say, everyone here was on high alert for casualties and injuries, but thankfully we weren’t needed. Our Emergency Response Team raced down there as soon as we got the news, to help out in any way they could. It has been incredibly inspiring seeing the response of the community, both Thai and Expat, to the fire. Over 40,000 baht (over NZD$1600), was raised by our community within the first few hours of the emergency, and supplies and donations continue to trickle in. I've driven by this camp several times,  and some of my friends work in it, so it's really sad to know what's going on there at the moment.

The aftermath

But my reason for mentioning this is to add to the general air of this post. Mae Sot has been under a blanket of smoke for the past week or so. It’s ‘burn season’ here at the moment, so farmers are burning off their fields in preparation for new planting, a fine layer of the resulting ash coats everything outside. Added to this is the fact that there is an enormous forest fire raging somewhere nearby on the border. The Thai government is allegedly trying to blame this smoke extravaganza on both Burma (apparently the fire is slightly more on the Burmese side of the border) and on climate change. Either way, this is a horrible and uncomfortable place to be at the moment. 

Usual visiblity in Mae Sot

Current visibility in Mae Sot

There is no escape from the smoke, not even inside my house, as we have screens on the windows and don’t/can’t close the actual glass on the windows. Everyone is struggling to breathe, dry throats and coughs abound. And itchy, sore red eyes are everywhere. It’s a bit rubbish really. Two days ago the Bangkok Post stated “Smoke from wildfires has reduced air quality and visibility on the Thai-Myanmar border in Tak's Mae Sot district to the point of a crisis as dust particles are almost exceeding safe levels”. I’m not sure what’s meant to happen when safe levels are exceeded, but I’d say they have well and truly exceeded them now. The tiny airport here has been closed for the past 4 days or so due to visibility issues, although the smoke did clear up enough yesterday afternoon for a small window, so the one-flight-every-second-day that comes in here was able to land. 

 Last night as I was trying to sleep, my room was full of smoke, everything is dusty and I feel grimy all the time. A while back I said that sometimes it’s like cycling into a hairdryer here. Well, currently it’s like cycling into a hairdryer that is also loaded with dust. Here’s hoping the smoke clears soon, at the moment I’ll just focus on trying to breathe.