Everything Burns
Wildfire is the most powerful force on earth.
I happen to be one of those people who have done a lot of hiking in the Angeles National Forest. I know various parts of it like the back of my hand, like when there were dirt roads that went down to Valley Forge from Red Box. In fact, where most people go downhill at Switzers, we went due south up to that unnamed peak. That unforgettable day we saw fire coming up the opposite slope and had to bug out fast, but not before we spoke the the rangers in their green trucks.
This film speaks to me on many levels, and while it attempts to pound a few concepts into my head like I’m stupid, it drives home some fundamentals that many people don’t seem to understand. The bottom line is that wildfire is not that complicated. If there’s fuel, it will burn. If it doesn’t burn today, it will burn tomorrow. Once it starts burning at a certain level, a wildfire will continue to burn until it runs out of fuel. That is to say at a basic level carbon and oxygen are always a dangerous combination.
For some reason, we have established the legitimacy of an ‘environmentalist’ attitude towards ‘natural beauty’ that results in sheer foolishness. It doesn’t matter who people decide to blame, the foolishness stands clearly and the massive size of wildfires is the reckoning. Fire is not the enemy, zoos are the enemy. We treat our forests like they are zoos, the old kind with metal bars and cages, with the life forms within to be gawked at by people in Hawaiian shirts. Tourists, eighty nine flowers down their back.
I always say that zero tolerance requires infinite policing. And I stretch the analogy only slightly to suggest that our zoo-forests only need an occasional nudge to achieve their own herd immunity to catastrophic massive burns. Controlled burns to clear brush can make forests anti-fragile. That is something we can do. We needn’t let the world burn. Forestry is, after all, a science. But it cannot be practiced in the rational vacuum created by zero tolerance of brush clearing fires. I’m an inveterate hiker, but I can enjoy other outdoor adventures.
Altadena, where I used to live, is toast. Mount Lowe, where I used to hike, is toast. Mount Wilson may not escape.
The Eaton fire may reach the antennae and observatory, but I’m sure that the most resources possible have been deployed to arrest that probability. I have done plenty of weeping over seeing my favorite areas burnt to a crisp, especially the old lookout station atop Josephine Peak from the Big Tujunga Fire in 1975. 47,000 acres. We hiked up that fire road many times, my dad’s dog Buster fought a rattler on that road, and lived. Dogs die. Fires die. But we need to exercise them when they live and not let them get fat.
The creche we made for my late brother is burned. We’ll have to go up to the Cheney Trail and find it again.
The house where I taught my kids to swim exists no more. Get ready people. The state with some of the most frighteningly ruthless real estate markets is gearing up for the next nightmare. It won’t be quite so film worthy, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
We need a word for when millions of people in one place experience loss of memories. Maybe the French or the Russians have a suitable word. Thanks for this essay.
Wow