On June 20th, just a few days from now, a small man-caused fire started less than a half a mile from our property. The fire grew swiftly as the massive winds howled right in our direction. In no time I could hear the roaring of the inferno as it grew in intensity. It advanced upon us so quickly we barely had enough time to evacuate. Gratefully, my partner, dog and I made it out safely. At the time however, we didn’t quite know to what extent the event might turn into. Ourselves, the neighbors and the small mountain community we belong to were extremely lucking in many ways.

Sadly, what we thought could be a possibility became a reality. The previous thinning event I wrote about this winter contributed to just how quickly the fire spread and man, unfortunately, was the ignitor. The slash and brush left scattered about by a thinning crew last fall become the hungry inferno’s perfect fuel turning this fire into the serious event that it was. As a result of the fire’s consumption roughly 50% of our 21 acre property burned, as well as over 420 acres of beautiful surrounding forestland.

My partner and I have always accepted wildfires as a natural part of living with the forest. What we find hard to accept is how this particular fire could have been avoided in two ways. Firstly, the thinning and slash left behind was a failed and grossly inappropriate action taken on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management. An utterly failed attempt at “fuels management”. Forests that are meddled with in these kinds of ways, tend to burn more intensely simply because of the natural balance that is stolen from Nature. And secondly, this is a man-caused (and fueled) fire. We are in a drought and are in our dry and windy season any way. Yet, the same week of this fire, our neighbor witnessed two groups of campers who left behind fire-rings, once of which left smoldering, which he drowned out. Campfires and the like should not even been considered at this time.

This was an overall unnatural event. Our forest will recover, but this didn’t need to be.It’s been a very charged time but I will try to follow up on this event in upcoming posts, here and on The Wandering Naturalist. I would like to follow up not only details of this event, but also on secondary considerations such as potential forest recovery efforts and possibilities.Also, I have been behind on my articles and have been trying to catch up. Please bear with me.

With Nature in mind,
~ Soraya