California’s 2020 wildfire season was indisputably historic: Fires burned a record-high 4.3 million acres in the state, and five of the blazes went down among the 10 largest in our recorded history. Many were touched off by widespread lightning sieges, which hadn’t occurred at such a high rate since 2008. Likewise, this confluence of events led to unusually high levels of acrid smoke blowing into the Valley, at times from all directions. Throughout the region, the air quality index (AQI) in