You might have already guessed that they love bright red. Orange is a second favorite. Therefore, it stands to reason that ...

But when the scattered smoke particles strongly reduce the blue and violet light, they leave behind only the red and orange to pass through, Kalmus said. “Rayleigh scattering strength depends on ...

The cause? In short: Smoke particles from the fires allow sunlight's longer wavelength colors, like red and orange, to pass through while blocking the shorter wavelengths, like yellow, blue and green.

Smoke particles also scatter light, and because they are larger than air molecules, they also scatter the orange and red colors. That results in far more red and orange in the sky than we are used ...