FIRE!!!

No pictures today. there have been more than enough on TV. My topic today is fire, the destructive and demoralizing kind such as we have witnessed too many of lately.

The latest terrible blazes in California have brought back some memories, made me think and certainly saddened and troubled me.  I’ve abhorred wild land fires for a very long time. The first one I experienced was in 1955 when I was twelve years old. What began as a “controlled burn” on the western side of the Black Hill Range in central Arizona grew to several thousand acres and took out the forest on a good chunk of Mingus Mountain, which was ‘my mountain’ where we rode, hunted, picnicked and cut wood. For a week or so the smoke was so thick down in the valley towns that it looked and felt close to twilight at noon. Of course that made an impression that I have never lost. Nobody died but it was a shock and left some trauma.

Since then I have seen a number of other fires where either an allegedly controlled burn got out of hand or something not too different sparked the destructive blaze. A part of the Whetstones burned in the late 1980s as a result of such a case, mountains the nearest to my home at the time in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona. Since then I’ve seen an ever increasing plague of fires destroying much beautiful wild country, taking out habitat and harming so many wild creatures and in more recent times, threatening and destroying rural homes and even towns.

Of course every person and certainly every faction has ‘the answer’ or at least the cause. It’s climate change; it is mismanagement; it is Divine punishment and on and on. Actually in my none-to-humble opinion we could check all of the above and add quite a few more contributing factors.

Yes, climate change is playing a role. It is warmer and drier the past 25-50 years than it has been at least in the recent past. There have always been fluctuations in climate and there always will be. How else have we had ice ages and droughts and heat waves and floods? The earth wobbles on her axis; the sun gets hotter and cooler; volcanoes throw a vast cloud of ash and dust into the air that limits the strength of the sunlight. Exactly how much of the current cycle is due to human activity I tend to question; surely some but to blame all is a drastic oversimplification. I’m not buying all the scare stories and panic. ‘Nuff said on that.

There is a human factor to the fires, though, a very big one. In about 200 years we have gone from a very few people roaming the land, at least the western two thirds or so of North America, to literally millions filling cities, towns, suburbs and even rural areas. Compare that to wandering tribes of indigenous people—probably no more than thousands in all.

Now these millions go out and recreate in the open and wild places, light and often do not properly douse campfires; ride and drive a variety of vehicles which can shoot off sparks and radiate extreme heat down on the ground when they are parked. They shoot off fireworks and firearms, both of which send heat and sometimes tiny bits of live flame off into the grass, brush and trees. Sometimes they even set fires on purpose either with malice or just being foolish. Power lines can break or be blown over, live wires sparking. The list goes on and on. So yes, there is a huge increase in fires directly or indirectly caused by humans.

Management or the lack thereof? This is also subject to some debate. For a good part of the twentieth century the goal and practice was to put out or at least contain all wild land fires as quickly as possible. We had ‘look out towers’ throughout the forests and as soon as a wisp of smoke was sighted, a crew was dispatched to fight that fire. This generally prevented or at least curtailed most of the huge damaging fires we’ve seen in the last 20-40 years. However it did also allow accumulation of dead wood, brush and litter on the forest and chaparral floor which just lay there, waiting the spark to set it ablaze. That was not good.

Now, in the alleged interest of protecting the wilderness areas, a great number of roads and even trails have been removed. No motorized vehicles are allowed and devices such as chain saws are often banned as well. We don’t go out and cut wood; we seldom camp/ride/hunt etc. We don’t do anything at all but simply let nature take its course. Maybe that is good but when a fire is kindled in such areas, getting in to contain it is very difficult. Maybe we can use aircraft; maybe we can get crews to hike in with hand tools and attempt to make fire breaks or otherwise limit the spread. And maybe that works but often it does not. So in my opinion, management is at fault to a fairly major degree.

I think a moderate mixture of the traditional and the current methods could be applied to some benefit. There need to be some exceptions to the pristine wilderness rules; very carefully planned and contained use of controlled burns may help. Perhaps even let people go out and gather wood for their stoves or fireplaces to clear some of the litter from the ground. Be creative and give more control back to local regions who generally know their area far better than any distantly led organization or government entity who oversimplifies by a one size fits all approach. You think?

Something needs to be done, without a doubt. California has been most in the news and certainly has suffered cruelly but the whole west has been hit very hard for quite a few years now. Perhaps we need to limit the settlements or towns that can grow in the midst of a forest. I think now of Paradise and of a Colorado region called the Black Forest east of I-25 between Denver and Colorado Springs, both ravaged by recent fires. The public needs to be educated much more on how to be safe and fire-wise everywhere they go.

This may not apply so much to city folk except when they vacation in remote areas, but those who live in the suburbs and the rural regions have really got to smarten up! It takes more than raking, heaven knows, but one can protect his or her own property in many ways. Do make a fire break of cleared ground around your yard or farmstead. Do limit the trees and shrubs in places where they can be hazardous and definitely DO use the maximum amount of fire resistant material when building a home, outbuildings or other structures. A good reliable source of water can help plus generally being alert and noticing the small fires before they become huge self-feeding monsters! Things as basic as not burning trash on windy days. This is not exactly rocket science!

Right now my heart goes out to those who have been made homeless, lost property, pets and even loved ones to the recent spate of fires. There is no way to measure, much less assuage their agony. Yet the tragedy of it is that, at least in the bulk of the cases, these horrible things could very possibly have been prevented or the damage greatly limited. That we have not managed to do so is the real tragedy and until we learn how to handle this much better, I fear many more losses are going to result.