destructive. sudden. arbitrary. powerful. looming. Wildfires are many things to those affected by them and to those just following from afar. I am always impressed by how organized and calculated the scores of firefighters are in applying resources, attacking the fires and defending life and property. I feel awe at the sometimes massive blazes. My hope in humanity strengthens as neighbors help neighbors, strangers donate money and other resources, and firefighters from other states and countries come to assist.

From our spot in the southern San Francisco bay area, fire season mostly means bad air quality, stories of friends being impacted and occasional inconveniences. Though it sometimes provides an eerie yellowish/hazy sunrise or a beautiful orange/red sunset, the smoky air more reliably just irritates eyes, noses and lungs. Years ago after playing an evening soccer game I wondered why it felt like I’d smoked a cigarette (says the non-smoker) before I remembered the wildfire smoke that had settled into the area. Usually the bad air goes away in a few days or a week. Occasionally it stays longer or brings with it bits of ash (creepy!). In Sep 2016 we re-planned a birthday party away from Gilroy Gardens due to smoke from the “Loma” fire.

Below are a few  anecdotes/stories that come to mind when I think of wildfires:

The Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (the first Zen training monastery outside of Japan) lies down a one-way 14 mile dirt road in the Ventana Wilderness – a beautiful green landscape much of the year, but a difficult area to reach and defend come fire season. In 2008 the center was threatened by a lightning-ignited fire (the “Basin Complex” fire). Due to the remoteness and single, long road to safety the firefighters declared it indefensible and called for a complete evacuation. Colleen Morton Busch wrote the book “Fire Monks” about how five monks returned to the center to fight the fire (mental note: add this book to my reading list). Since then the center has been endangered several times and they have responded by getting trained and prepared to fight fires and specifically to defend the center’s structures – both historic and functional (e.g. solar panels). I imagine it takes a special individual to stay behind and fight the flames knowing the area (and you) could potentially be overrun by fire. Despite my taking a world religions class in high school, I don’t know much about Zen Buddhism – but the preview for the book “Fire Monks” gives the impression that these monks are uniquely suited to stay calm and on task even as danger abounds. As a last resort they could take refuge in stone buildings in which are stored water, food and oxygen.

These links cover the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center during/around the 2016 “Soberanes” fire:

• http://www.montereyherald.com/general-news/20160817/tassajara-zen-center-fire-crews-spent-last-few-weeks-bracing-for-soberanes-fire
• https://www.sfchronicle.com/travel/centralcoasting/article/Fighting-fire-with-Zen-at-Tassajara-10630948.php

Business Week did a fascinating feature on the 2016 Fort McMurray fire in Northern Alberta, Canada. The article covers the fire in general, the history of the area and one family’s escape. Below are a few points that impressed me. The fire was so massive and intense that it:

• forced the full evacuation of the city
• jumped the 1 KM wide Athabasca river, thought to be a safe fire break
• created its own weather system – there is a great description in the Business Week article of how the center column of heat moves upward and pulls air from around the fire and creates pyrocumulonimbus clouds which can send lightning bolts out possibly starting new fires
• the intensity of the fire (estimated in kilowatts per meter), grew to 25(!) times too intense to be worked by crews on the ground and 10 times too intense for aircraft to be effective
• shed the assigned fire name (location, number) and became known simply as “the Beast”
• became the most expensive disaster in Canadian history
• continued to burn (smoldering in remote areas) one year later; it was so intense that it burned through 5 feet of the ground (peat or muskeg) and could travel underground and start new fires on the surface. The Beast could travel over land, water, through the air and under ground!

This was “The Big One” (earthquake), the Category 5 hurricane … nature’s wrath unleashed.

For many centuries before the arrival of Europeans (and for a few afterwards), the indigenous people of Turtle Island (what we today call “North America”) periodically burned large areas of land. They did this to clear out old grass and dead trees, but also to keep these areas as open grasslands rather than letting them grow and develop into thicker grass, shrubs, small trees and eventually forest. Several colonists, not used to seeing such large intentionally-set fires, wrote about it in their journals and letters. Charles C. Mann, in his book “1491“, describes the colonists’ reactions and the process of succession of plant species – where, over time, a new ecosystem replaces the prior one.

Fire was instrumental for moving some American Bison, (commonly but incorrectly called “buffalo”), from the great plains area eastward. Indigenous people burned areas to create grassland and also used fire to corral bison into that area, extending its range (eventually including the area from New York to Georgia). The idea that native people managed the land and animals in this way flies in the face of what were taught in history class. That is largely the point of “1491“, to re-think the history of the Americas before the arrival of the slave-trader Columbus, challenging the Eurocentric view with new and forgotten evidence. I’d guess these large prairie fires were an amazing and startling spectacle. I wonder … How long did these fires burn for? Did they set the fires close to rainfall in order to only burn smaller areas, or did they just let it go wherever the wind would take it?

Notes:

• I first started reading Business Week magazine when I took a class on investing from the local junior college. The teacher was a funny broker from Merrill Lynch. One of the assignments was to read financial periodicals. Business Week covers business, obviously, but also covers many other areas. Sadly I haven’t had the time recently to keep up with the ever-growing stacks of magazines, so I’ve switched to an online subscription.
• I avoided the term “Native American” above due to controversy around that name. Though the name is commonly used these days it is not necessarily a preferred name by those whom it is intended to refer to. It may be the least bad option … will have to think more on this.
• This post was not inspired by or related to the ABC Family show “Wildfire”, which I may or may not have watched contemporaneously with my wife