Song Lyrics
I'm on my way home after doing a few errands in town and as I pull off the interstate, I can see billows of smoke rising into the blue sky in the direction of our small community. "No one would be burning purposely", I thought to myself. The county had issued a ban a week or so before on all outside burning due to the extreme drought we are having this summer. I pass our one truck, volunteer fire department and see it gone and my heart skips a beat. I wind my way a little further along our country roads and that distinct smell creeps into the car as I watch the smoke get closer and closer. By the time I reach our mile long driveway, it becomes quite clear where this fire is burning.
A few weeks earlier I was outside by our garden doing a rain dance. What is it with the weather this year? We have been breaking temperature records every other day and it's been well over a month since any of our flowers or veggies have tasted a raindrop, other than from my water hose. The grass has turned from green to winter brown. And it's not just us and our tiny existence that seems to be affected by this unbalance. Everything around us is too. The birds are no longer singing. It's too hot and dry for the cocoons of all the butterflies to make it through metamorphosis. The wildlife that we normally see every day have just disappeared. In their place we are being plagued with an unusual number of flying insects, and the stinging type too. The creeks are dry. One of our ponds is now completely gone and all you can see are the countless foot prints of deer, raccoon and coyote scavenging for a morsel of water in the mud.
The unbalance seems to be rubbing off on us humans too. Sharon says I've been a bit moody lately. It does seem like I've been getting frustrated more easily and over the stupidest stuff too. It's not just me. Just about everyone we run into is seems depressed or is a bit "Debby downer" and complains about something. The drought and summer heat appears to have dried us all up and has turned all of us into kindling for a wild fire.
My heart lifts a little when I reach my house and see it still standing, but then jumps back into overdrive when I see a firetruck and countless pickups all parked around our barn. I jump out and sprint to the men all gathered around the firetruck and recognize a few neighbors who work as volunteers in the fire department. I learn that a fire has broken out on the backside of our hollow and had already burned forty or more acres and was working its way up to the top of our ridge. They weren't equipped to fight a forest fire and with only 750 gallons of water in their truck, they were there to hopefully stop the fire from taking our home. The adrenaline-switch kicks in and I hop on the four wheeler and start up the trail, climbing from our valley elevation of 740 feet above sea level up to our ridge top of 1140. Right when I was about to leave I am joined by a couple neighbors who also drove up to see where the smoke was coming from. Once we reached the top, the smell of burning trees and leaves was so strong, but because the forest was so dense we couldn't see a fire line anywhere. This gave me a temporary relief in knowing that it hadn't made it over the top yet. In the one area where the smoke appeared to be the strongest, we started walking through the smoke down the other side of the nearly 100% vertical hillside. I couldn't see fire anywhere, but could smell it everywhere. Then I hear my Latino neighbor Eric yell " O-ly cheett, O-LY CHEET over here". I scurry and slide to where he is and see the wall of bright orange climbing the hill towards us. We get a little closer and the heat and smoke push us back. Another neighbor yells "there's more over here". My heart is pounding and sweat is dripping from every pore and the 102 degree day was not making it any easier. We try to pull the leaves and dried limbs that are uphill from the fire away to make an earth barrier, but as the sparks and embers rise and fall, they were sparking more flames than we could put out. It becomes obvious that we weren't going to be able to fight this forest fire from the hillside and that the only hope was to return to the ridgetop and declare war here, where it was at least semi level ground.
I head back to give the volunteer firemen a status on the fire and they give me some good news and some bad news. The good news is that forest service was at the base of the fire on the other side and working their way around the fire with a dozer and a two person ground crew and the bad news was that the volunteers may have to pull out because there were two other fires burning in the county. I crank up the tractor with the box blade attachment, more neighbors come to help and thoughtfully brought water to keep us hydrated. I down a bottle on my way back up the ridge and instantly I feel stronger. I scraped the entire ridge creating a six foot wide earth barrier while neighbors removed dead limbs. This would hopefully stop the fire or at least slow it down so we could put it out on foot. We could hear the bulldozer working his way around the fire, but couldn't see him yet. One of the blazes was about 150 feet from reaching the top and at this point all we could do was sit, catch our breath, hydrate and wait for it. Finally we see the yellow of fire service dozer push through the flames, knock down a burning tree and come in front of the fire. A sigh of relief passes between us. I climb down to the two forest service fire fighters and tell them about the other blazes we've seen along the ridge and one of them radios to the dozer operator. I'm drenched in sweat, dirt and ash and felt a little bad saying "damn it's hot and humid today" as I noticed that they were wearing full firefighting gear and had to be 100 times hotter than me. "Ya know, if it wasn't as humid as it is today, this fire would have burned a lot faster and probably gotten past us." They told me. "It's about 90% contained now and as soon as the bulldozer finishes the sweep along the ridge, everything should be safe in your hollow, though you may want to come back up here several times through the night to check on things." Needless to say, I didn't sleep too well that evening and did go back a couple times and watched the embers burn themselves out. In the still of the forest I sat there feeling mixed emotions. I felt sad for all the trees, animals and life that was altered or ended. I was so grateful that our little hollow was untouched. I felt bad for the neighbor that accidentally started the fire while burning a few boxes and how that one decision will be something they live with for a long while. I was humbled and overwhelmed with pride when I thought of all my other neighbors that came with water and a helping hand and the volunteers that dropped everything they were doing that day to come and try to protect my home. I felt a tear form in one of my eyes and before I headed back down to the house for the night I did a little rain dance on top of the ridge.
A day later the rains came. Temperatures dropped back to the normal summer averages and today after three days of more wonderful, cool, refreshing, delicious, rain, I feel and see the balance return. The grass is getting greener, the cardinals are singing, the hummingbirds are fighting for the feeders, the wildlife is peaking back at us from the woods and even the strangers that we run into at the grocery store are smiling and are saying things like "Have a lovely day". It feels like the winter of summer has ended and it's spring once again.
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