Fire

What you do not want to see on the horizon when you live on a farm, is smoke. It always requires evaluating. Are the loggers burning slash? Not likely at this time of year with the forests tinder dry. If it's a forest fire (it was), how far away is it and which direction is the wind blowing? (about 5 miles and blowing the right direction to send it away from here and into uninhabited areas-- at least by humans)

During the late summer and fall, before the first heavy rains, whenever I smell smoke, I go outside to scan the horizons-- no smoke, good. I never ever drive home from town or a trip without doing the same thing.

When I was a little girl, I remember a huge fire that threatened and burned some of the 80 acres where I grew up. At night I would look out my bedroom window and see the whole horizon glowing red-- not sunset. First, the men were huddled in groups discussing it, then disappearing all night. When I would go off to school (it was March), I would worry what would happen while I was gone.

The fire when I was a little girl was a huge one, burned thousands of acres, and was turned on my parents' farm by the local men, along with my dad, clearing enough ground to start a backfire. At that time, backfires were out of popularity and the state forest fire fighters, who were only protecting houses, not land, were irritated that locals had shifted the direction of the fire to head back into the national forests. It worked though and although we had a few burned trunks, most of our trees and land escaped unscathed.

Saturday afternoon, the fire that started on the hills above this farm was fought by 50 firefighters whose numbers increased as it became of more concern. We kept an eye on the smoke to try to determine whether we should shift where our irrigation was to protect our cows in case the fire and wind changed course. One of the good things about irrigating our pastures is the likelihood of losing cows or sheep is decreased. The creek might also survive the sweep of a big fire as when I have seen in Montana, where the fires are gigantic, often the creek trees will be unscathed when all the hill trees are burned to black and smoldering trunks.

In only one forest fire out here, in our 30+ years here, were we warned to be ready to evacuate. Fortunately they stopped it before that became necessary although we did take Hopi pottery, Navajo rugs and photo albums into town to stay in our daughter's college apartment. Fire makes you consider what really matters and what is irreplaceable. I also remember the offers from friends to come out and help fight the fire or move more of our things it that became necessary.

Even more years ago, when one of our barns burned, it was a winter night, the local volunteer firefighters were here within moments, not in time to save some of the animals who had been within. Barns burn fast when they go. Fortunately, that time of the year, there was no spreading of it to nearby trees.

With this fire, up on the hill one of the owners of a tree farm, cut a swatch, started a backfire that was intended to turn the fire if it crested the ridge and in turn protect the local valley and homes-- probably. The thing with fire is it is unreliable for what it will do-- except it does go faster up hills than down them. For now this situation looks good and the smoke seems to be dissipating. It's a bad time of the year to see smoke on the horizon.