I remember hiking through a fire when I was 13, on my first trip with my family. It wasn't a very active one, obviously. We had no idea there was a fire in the area and came upon it as we were heading back to the trailhead on a different route than we went in. It was probably a small lightning fire they were allowing to burn out on its own.

When I did the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, the park was letting a fire burn on the steep side of the canyon above Hetch Hetchy. I sat on the ridge and watched the chopper circling and dropping retardant to contain it. They'd closed part of the trail system, but what were we going to do, not hike out to the car? The fire crews were camping in the backpacker camp at White Wolf. The afternoon upslope breeze choked the canyon with smoke, but settled down by dusk, and so things were clear in the morning while we did the majority of the hiking.

Right now there is a huge fire burning in the southern Sierra, so the whole range is hazy. I'm going backpacking again this weekend, nowhere near the fire, but expecting views to be poor.