Haze-free Sunday

Today was a good day. Singapore woke up to clean air again.

For many days now, we've had to breath in air with smoke (above), the smoke courtesy of Indonesia who is now watching hapless as forest fires rage in Sumatra.

Its an annual problem, this haze in Singapore. When it is slash-and-burn season in Indonesia, the small fires that farmers and plantation owners start to clear more land soon enough become huge, uncontrollable fires that eat whole forests, generating enough smoke that choke neighbouring countries Malaysia, Singapore and even some parts of Thailand in turn, depending on the direction of the wind.

I thought it was bad on Friday night (Pollutants Standard Index of 80), when the air was just so thick with smoke that my nose twitched no end from the acrid smell. But as it turned out, that was nothing compared to Saturday, when the PSI just doubled to 160! (A reading over 101 is unhealthy, necessitating the gov't to issue an advisory that cautioned against vigorous outdoor activity.) Me? I felt like a smoked chicken sitting at home and started to cough.

Looking out into the smoky horizon last night, I couldn't help but think how true the adage is about people not knowing how good they have it till they lose something. As I was gingerly breathing in smoke into my lungs, I longed for the clean air here that I had taken for granted all these years.

And so it was that when I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was to look out the window to check the cityscape before me for haze. I just had to whoop with joy when I 'saw' clean air again. No burning smell to every breath, no haze visible to the eye. PSI Index was at 27.

Welcome back sweet, clean air. Singapore missed you!