Fire on the Mountain
Well, our heatwave went out in a blaze of…not to be dramatic, but utter awfulness.
Last Thursday was our fifth consecutive day of high nineties, gusty winds, low humidity - and it was like the land and the people and the animals were all just waiting, collectively praying for the cool temps and rain promised by Friday’s forecast. There weren’t even cars on the road - the outdoors was silent in the swelter.
Just before four, when we’d passed the heat of the day and I came out of my darkened studio to begin preparing for our evening chores, a curl of smoke caught my eye out the westward facing windows of our bedroom. Within five minutes I could see flames. Within ten there were sirens. And then Eric and I were in full on emergency mode.
I am exceptionally proud to say we kept our shit together - the horse trailer was hooked up and readied, hay thrown in the back of the truck. All the house animals were prepped to be loaded into the car at a moment’s notice. Clothes and important documents and irreplaceables were packed up and ready, along with a note for the front door that would let firefighters know all animals and people were off the property.
I’m not ashamed to say I sat outside in the dried grass behind the windbreak weeping, watching helicopters pour what looked like thimblefuls of water on the advancing flames while forest service tankers swooped through the smoke to release red plumes of fire retardants. Yes, I was feeling a healthy amount of fear - but after what happened last year in Boulder, with the mental preparation I did at that time and the property management strategies we’ve put in place since, I actually felt surprisingly calm. It was more that I was just overwhelmed with GRATITUDE for all of these people who had made it their job to help protect my family and neighbors and our homes. Sweaty and exhausted and ready to leave my house behind, what I experienced was thankfulness.
And don’t get me started on the friends who called, offering us a place to bring the horses and spend the night if needed - that will make me weep again now.
My camera doesn’t have much of a zoom lens, so it’s hard to show how close this was - two miles at most (aka NOTHING to a grass fire). The mandatory evacuation came within a half mile, as the crow flies, from our house and the fact that the wind was blowing towards the west is all that kept scorched earth from becoming our reality.
As night fell, the temps finally dropped and rain began to fall. We watched the glowing lines of flames in the night shrink and fizzle as Thursday became Friday, and finally we slept. Though it took a few more days for all evacuations to lift and for the whole event to be given the title of “contained,” we saw no more fire.
All Friday it rained. All Saturday, too. We remembered what it’s like to enjoy being outside. The dogs tracked great clods of mud all through the house and we shivered in the fifty degree temperatures but we were joyous. No complaints, no lingering on what might have happened. As of yesterday we finished unpacking all the things we had thought to take and today I practiced loading and unloading the horses one more time (because even though they walk right in, it’s a skill we can never repeat enough times).
This can be a hard place to live, no matter the season - but for now it’s home. So we’ll do the best we can.
