Burned out, again!

Fire — it can be a wonderful, useful friend or it can become the devil incarnate with the hell of roaring, destroying flames. This has been particularly true in the past few decades. Fires have burned into communities, destroying and laying waste huge tracts of forests, hills, homes and peoples’ lives.

The big one going now is again in our Northern California area. It’s not the first by any means. Everyone remembers with horror and pain the Fountain fire, the Happy Valley, Jones Valley, Weaverville, Lewiston, Lake Tahoe fires and others.

There were great fires in the past, of course. Beginning at the start of the last century, however, the U.S. Forest Service began to put out all fires. As a result, fuel built up in forests so, when fires start now they no longer creep along the ground cleaning the forest floor. The fires leapt from that accumulated fuel into the treetops. Fire explodes from treetop to treetop in a “crown fire,” burning everything, laying waste huge tracts of forest land and anything that grows or is built on it.

Wildlife of all kinds try to flee, but most are injured or die in the fire. If they escape the fire and survive, their source of food and shelter is gone so they will suffer hunger and danger.

People are evacuated and suffer, wondering whether they will have anything left when the fire is over. Those whose homes are spared are deeply grateful. They feel sorrow for the neighbors who lost everything but cannot replace what is lost. People who haven’t been through a fire can only imagine what it’s like to see your entire life’s work go up in smoke. My parents were burned out twice. First, our new two-story house burned when I was 6. Mother was badly burned and spent months in hospital.

I remembered almost nothing for some days after standing in the road, holding onto my little sister and the puppy, screaming, “Fire, Fire, Help!” I still am anxious about fire.

The second fire, in 1941, burned our log house to the ground. George and I , walking by the river, looked up to see a pillar of smoke. We ran the two miles to our boat landing and stood helplessly until my brother could get away from the fire long enough to row over and get us. Everything was gone again — home, heart, and happiness.