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School for Inclement Weather: A Rotting Branch of Embers
We imagined the fire to be so slow that we could pull the moss off the base of the oaks as we waited for it downhill, giving every tree the time of our janitor’s touch. We would wait so long for the fire to crawl down the hill that we’d get bored together, we’d talk about little changes the sound was making, we’d sit quietly in the thick duff and watch lazy plumes of smoke climb up through the open canopy above us.
We would wait hours for the heat to walk down to us, in a forest who remembered all its songs, who could hold us inside its melody. The limbs of the tree would be high off the ground to let fire be a child again, to stay low to the floor, an earlier stage in evolution, crab-walking sideways, rooting for milk and falling asleep to the humming of its own smolder.
But this forest is not that forest. Or, it is that forest, but this time is not that time. This forest at this time is a lot quieter. My rotting branch of embers is a bright red drip torch full of 3 parts diesel, 1 part gasoline. In this forest I have to talk to the fire the whole time because it is angry.
It is angry to be woken after being made to sleep for so long, to find its forest choking, the layers of duff a hundred years thick and heavy, the trees growing so tight to each other that even a deer, if she could still come this way, could not pass through without her head down and coat scratched rough. The fire wants to know what happened here to make it burn so hot and consume so completely.
Instead, I'm saying sorry fire, come easy, stay soft — over and over again as we bring fire down from the top of the ridge. My prayer is interrupted by radio chatter, Firing team 1 telling Holding team 3 of increased fire activity on the uphill containment line, get water on a redwood, it’s torching up into a catface, exposed deadwood that could hollow and fall a tree if fire climbs in. Someone reads the weather, temperature up 3, humidity down 4. I have to stand far back from the fire, heat pulls the water from me. I’m sorry fire, come easy, stay soft, yes you can take my water, I’ll drink more.
The heat rises from the dried body of a tanoak so fast that wind sucks in from the ravine, tugging me closer. I want to lay down right here in this dream — would it be possible in this instant of combustion, this fleeting release after 100 years of growth, that the pyre of half decayed oak limbs once assembled into the shape of a great and living tree, could I catch a glimpse of what was once here, the acorns dancing high in the sunlight with the chime of a thousand little bells? But instead I drink more water and text an update to the battalion chief that we are making good progress (hoping he is impressed by my efficacy as a state burn boss). He texts back a yellow thumbs-up emoji.
A thin spider with long legs walks up onto a dry log, soon to be consumed. I let the spider crawl onto my yellow leather glove which feels now like the hand of an emoji and we walk across the old logging road to a place that won't be burnt today. The spider asks if we can slow down.
“No spider, we need to complete the operation before the engines go home and leave us to fend for ourselves.” I start to radio the eastern flank to increase their pace, stay ahead of the interior ignitions. The spider says “Wait. Let the engines leave, let the sun go down. Turn the pumps off, have a seat on this stump and wait.”
“Spider, if the sun goes down we’ll lose our lift, the smoke column will sit back on its haunches and fill that valley. That won't look good.”
“Yes! Let it fill the valley up, let the smoke shroud the river tomorrow, cover the salmon from the heat of the clear sun, that’s how the Kashia have always known to burn these mountains. Just listen to me: see how the sun goes down and pulls the finest foam from the ocean with it, that delicate foam rises up off the water and sneaks up and over the coastal ridge? See the fog channel its way into the mouth of the gualala spilling upriver, through the canyons, till it washes into the valley below us? Let that tide make a pool of this place. Burn down into it and the fire will forget its anger and be a shrine again. You can’t be its manager. Maybe you can be a shrine keeper for the time being, till it outlives you.”
Everything is so still now with the sound of the pump off. We strap headlamps to our helmets. A pygmy owl counts to 9 in the gathering dusk. My eyes don’t adjust to the dark because the forest is glowing so bright, the canopy lit from below. A forest so full of dead branches, broken limbs and disease, a century of fuel that could send a great and killing force up to the highest crown in the day’s dryness — and yet these flames remain tempered, softened by the small and infinite particles of water in the night air, sucking on the wound.
We forget ourselves and scrape some burning leaves down the hill, spreading the fire by hand. The fire is caressing now, it burns joyfully, invites us in through a doorway. The dogs are there. The redwoods blacken on their downhill side, embers travel up the length of trunk and disappear among the needles.