From my desk window, I watch the fire
where the far ridge drops into the next
watershed, Rio de los Santos Reyes,
to follow mushrooming thunder cells
billow white as backfires collide:
cedar, fir, pine and redwood up in smoke
late afternoons and imagine the heat
and trees exploding, smudged yellow
Nomex—men, and women too, on the fire line,
exhausted and bleary-eyed as the red tails
of air tankers sail back and forth over me.
Sixty thousand acres plus of back country
charred by a living, breathing monster
twenty-five percent contained. The wind
has changed and cleared our canyon
as thunder cells push eastward up the Kings.
From the ridge and from the air they watched
a lightning strike run in the rocks
for over a week, thought it would never
jump both the river and the road—
could have put it out anytime.
Always prayers for those people.
janet
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This is not an apology for the USFS, but why Smokey the Bear hesitated is because he/she did not like what they saw and tried to look at the fire from different perspectives. I think it was partially for safety reasons they did not put crews on a small fire at mid-slope with a 60% slope. I also think they underestimated their foe and treated it too long as a “resource” fire. Because it is so difficult to do prescribed fire they often take the opportunity to use a natural fire to remake the landscape into their idea of pre – European landscape. Smokey the Bear is confused and sad about what has happened with the Rough Fire, but he/she will not opologize insisting that drought and disease explain it all.
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I think you’ve got it absolutely right, Ben, correct and accurate. Thanks, it needed to be said.
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