Smokey skies
31/08/16 03:56
For the four years that we lived in Chicago we followed a common practice for students of that time. Although we lived and went to school in Illinois, we kept our formal residency in Montana. We used our parents’ address as our home address, remained registered voters in Montana, had Montana drivers’ licenses and our car bore Montana license plates. Those license plates often became a topic of discussion with friends and acquaintances as we drove around Chicago. The slogan on the Montana license plates was “Big Sky Country.” People would ask about that slogan, “What is so ‘big’ about the sky in Montana? Isn’t the sky the same size everywhere?” I would answer that it isn’t something that I could explain to someone who had never been to Montana, but when they came to visit Montana they would understand. Some of our classmates and friends have visited Montana in the years since and have experienced the wide open spaces of the west in ways that make it easy for them to understand the slogan.
Montana’s big skies weren’t the same as we traveled from Oregon yesterday. The air over the state is filled with smoke. In many places the smoke was so dense that you could smell it and the view of the mountains was obscured. In some places it was hard to distinguish where we were as the distant horizon disappeared and we focused our vision on things closer at hand. It is kind of sad to drive hundreds of miles through smoky country.
The source of the smoke was multiple fires that are boring across the west. In Idaho, the Pioneer fire burning in the Boise National Forest covers over 140,000 acres and the Henry’s Creek Fire near Idaho Falls is over 50,000 acres. There are numerous fires in Western Montana as well. Fires near Thompson Falls and Hamilton added to the smokey skies. For a short period of time as we crossed the continental divide east of Butte the inversion lifted and the smoke plume from the Nez Perce fire in the Beayerhead-Deer Lodge national forest was clearly visible. That fire is relatively small at around 70 acres, but the smoke rising from the mountains was dramatic as the sun began to set behind us. There was no visible sunset because the horizon was completely obscured by the smoke to the west.
Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington continue to experience unseasonably warm temperatures. The thermometer in the car was registering over 90 degrees at the top of the pass at 6 pm. For the firefighters in Idaho this summer will go into the record books as one of the biggest fire seasons. The old timers recall 1988 and 1989 when it took the first snows of winter to finally extinguish the huge blazes in the central wilderness of the state. This year’s fires, however, burned much closer to inhabited places with many structures being destroyed along with acres and acres of trees.
Having grown up close to Yellowstone National Park, I learned a lot from the big fires of the late 1980’s. We watched with horror as the television cameras showed footage of trees exploding into flame near familiar sights. We flew around the park in a small plane and observed the extent of the smoke plumes and fire fighting activities. We saw the huge gashes of the dozer lines and other firefighting operations. I remember one hillside near West Yellowstone that was so completely burned over that the locals said the soil had been sterilized and nothing would grow.
They were wrong. That hillside was covered in green the next year. Five years later there were small trees growing. Ten years later the area was filled with more deer and elk than I remember seeing in my lifetime. As destructive and terrible as the fires seem when they are burning, they are part of the natural cycle of the forest and some of the massive fires of our generation are the result of over-aggressive fire fighting techniques of previous times that allowed fuels to build up to such high levels.
Sill, if your home is sitting in a beautiful forested setting and all of the trees within sight of it are burned, the fact that the firefighters saved your home doesn’t change the fact that the view out your windows will not be the same in your lifetime. As we drove over Lolo pass yesterday it was my first look at some of the fires of the past five years or so that have changed vistas for quite a few homes. The fact that the houses were saved from fire is a testament to the skill and dedication of the firefighters. Over the next decades, those who live in those homes will witness the forest’s slow process of regeneration and regrowth, but they will have to be patient. In nature, things don’t go back to the way they were, but rather go ahead to a new reality. The post fire reality in the forest is often a dramatic shift in the type of plants and sometimes in the type of animals in the neighborhood.
Still, it was kind of sad to drive across my home state filled with smoke yesterday. There is the natural sadness as we near the end of our time of vacation and anticipate the work that has been piling up in our absence. The smoky skies seemed to enhance that mood as we drove, sometimes for many miles with very little conversation about anything about how smoky the skies are and what we were missing seeing as we drove.
At my childhood home this morning, today’s drive is familiar and we’ll sleep in our home this evening and return to work tomorrow. I woke straining to hear the river, which is quieted by low stream flows. It is the lowest I’ve ever seen it. The Yellowstone River and all of its tributaries from Yellowstone National Park to the Laurel bridge are closed to all activities including fishing, floating, and even wading. The fly fishing shop in my home town has closed for lack of business. The economic impact is severe. So far the fish die off in the Yellowstone hasn’t reached the upper tributaries, but people keep checking with a wary eye.
This summer will be one for the record books as the locals sniff the air, pray for the safety of the fire fighters and wait for the winds to change. A little rain and a whole lot of snow wouldn’t hurt, either.
Montana’s big skies weren’t the same as we traveled from Oregon yesterday. The air over the state is filled with smoke. In many places the smoke was so dense that you could smell it and the view of the mountains was obscured. In some places it was hard to distinguish where we were as the distant horizon disappeared and we focused our vision on things closer at hand. It is kind of sad to drive hundreds of miles through smoky country.
The source of the smoke was multiple fires that are boring across the west. In Idaho, the Pioneer fire burning in the Boise National Forest covers over 140,000 acres and the Henry’s Creek Fire near Idaho Falls is over 50,000 acres. There are numerous fires in Western Montana as well. Fires near Thompson Falls and Hamilton added to the smokey skies. For a short period of time as we crossed the continental divide east of Butte the inversion lifted and the smoke plume from the Nez Perce fire in the Beayerhead-Deer Lodge national forest was clearly visible. That fire is relatively small at around 70 acres, but the smoke rising from the mountains was dramatic as the sun began to set behind us. There was no visible sunset because the horizon was completely obscured by the smoke to the west.
Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington continue to experience unseasonably warm temperatures. The thermometer in the car was registering over 90 degrees at the top of the pass at 6 pm. For the firefighters in Idaho this summer will go into the record books as one of the biggest fire seasons. The old timers recall 1988 and 1989 when it took the first snows of winter to finally extinguish the huge blazes in the central wilderness of the state. This year’s fires, however, burned much closer to inhabited places with many structures being destroyed along with acres and acres of trees.
Having grown up close to Yellowstone National Park, I learned a lot from the big fires of the late 1980’s. We watched with horror as the television cameras showed footage of trees exploding into flame near familiar sights. We flew around the park in a small plane and observed the extent of the smoke plumes and fire fighting activities. We saw the huge gashes of the dozer lines and other firefighting operations. I remember one hillside near West Yellowstone that was so completely burned over that the locals said the soil had been sterilized and nothing would grow.
They were wrong. That hillside was covered in green the next year. Five years later there were small trees growing. Ten years later the area was filled with more deer and elk than I remember seeing in my lifetime. As destructive and terrible as the fires seem when they are burning, they are part of the natural cycle of the forest and some of the massive fires of our generation are the result of over-aggressive fire fighting techniques of previous times that allowed fuels to build up to such high levels.
Sill, if your home is sitting in a beautiful forested setting and all of the trees within sight of it are burned, the fact that the firefighters saved your home doesn’t change the fact that the view out your windows will not be the same in your lifetime. As we drove over Lolo pass yesterday it was my first look at some of the fires of the past five years or so that have changed vistas for quite a few homes. The fact that the houses were saved from fire is a testament to the skill and dedication of the firefighters. Over the next decades, those who live in those homes will witness the forest’s slow process of regeneration and regrowth, but they will have to be patient. In nature, things don’t go back to the way they were, but rather go ahead to a new reality. The post fire reality in the forest is often a dramatic shift in the type of plants and sometimes in the type of animals in the neighborhood.
Still, it was kind of sad to drive across my home state filled with smoke yesterday. There is the natural sadness as we near the end of our time of vacation and anticipate the work that has been piling up in our absence. The smoky skies seemed to enhance that mood as we drove, sometimes for many miles with very little conversation about anything about how smoky the skies are and what we were missing seeing as we drove.
At my childhood home this morning, today’s drive is familiar and we’ll sleep in our home this evening and return to work tomorrow. I woke straining to hear the river, which is quieted by low stream flows. It is the lowest I’ve ever seen it. The Yellowstone River and all of its tributaries from Yellowstone National Park to the Laurel bridge are closed to all activities including fishing, floating, and even wading. The fly fishing shop in my home town has closed for lack of business. The economic impact is severe. So far the fish die off in the Yellowstone hasn’t reached the upper tributaries, but people keep checking with a wary eye.
This summer will be one for the record books as the locals sniff the air, pray for the safety of the fire fighters and wait for the winds to change. A little rain and a whole lot of snow wouldn’t hurt, either.