According to the professional foresters, fire is a normal part of forest ecology. Those who have studied the cycles of life and rebirth in the forest know that there have always been fires in wooded areas. The fires clean up downed timber, inset-killed trees, and other fuels. They open up meadows for animal habitat. They burn in mosaic patterns that encourage the forest to have trees of many different ages growing in proximity to one another.

There has been a lot learned about fires in the span of my life. When I was younger, fire was always seen as the enemy. My father flew thousands of hours in a light airplane over the Gallatin National Forest and Yellowstone National Park, looking for smoke plumes, trying to locate fires before they got big. As soon as a fire was detected, crews were dispatched to put it out as soon as possible. They were remarkable effective in keeping fires from spreading.

Then in 1988 and 1989, huge fires swept through Yellowstone National Park. The 1988 fire grew too big to be fought. It was finally extinguished by October snows. It was as if all of the stored energy of all of the previous fires that had been fought was combined into a giant unstoppable fire.

Fire is now seen as a useful forest management tool. Prescribed burns are ignited when conditions are right to help the forest recover balance and health. But fire is unpredictable. Controversy has arisen when prescribed burns have gotten out of control and spread to unintended places.

The theory of fire management, however, is not what people want to discuss when their homes are threatened or burned by wildfire. The High Park Fire now has destroyed 118 structures and the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office reported that a 62-year old woman died when she refused to leave her mountain cabin.

It is a really huge and aggressive fire. The Incident Information Web Site shows the fire has burned 43,372 acres as of 8 hours ago. That is just under 68 square miles. And the Interagency Fire Center has a lot of big fires going at the same time. The Honey Prairie Fire Complex in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia has scorched 309,200 acres. The Whitewater-Baldy Complex in New Mexico continues to grow at 280,075 acres. 438 square miles of fire is a lot of fire. In many western states, there are multiple fires burning at the same time. According to the Incident Information Web Site, there are 10 active fires in Arizona, 5 in Colorado, 22 in Idaho, 7 in Montana, 4 in New Mexico, 2 in Utah and 3 in Washington. The site does not show any active fires in South Dakota at the moment. We have had some heavy rains with the storms of the past few weeks and the hills are not as dry as we had feared in May.

We don’t tend to think in terms of the big picture very often, especially when our homes are threatened. Instead of thinking of the nature of the forests, the ecology of fire, the distribution of resources among federal and state agencies, people think about their own home when fire threatens. It is natural to work hard to defend one’s home in any way that can be done. But when the big fires come about all a homeowner can do is to evacuate and watch from a safe distance. The hopes and dreams of decades become subject to the direction of the wind.

The Forest Service is scrambling to get air tankers into service. There are now 13 of the big planes working fires, with another in transit from Alaska, two nearing completion in California and four tankers from Canada on their way. But wind, weather and smoke conditions determine how the tankers can be deployed to drop retardant.

The really big fires, however, command lots of resources. Hundreds of firefighters, dozens and dozens of trucks, even a half dozen tankers can be dispatched to a single fire and the fire will continue to grow when the winds and weather are right. The woods are filled with fuel and once the fire burns out of control it is very difficult to stop its spread regardless of how many resources are available. Sometimes on the big fires so much equipment and so many personnel are dispatched that the firefighting efforts become crowded and inefficient. Not every problem can be solved by throwing more money and resources at it.

The dynamic for the homeowners is an emotional roller coaster. They try to determine where the fire is burning and how close it might be coming to their homes. Reports of which homes have burned and which have been spared come only after the fire has moved away from a particular area. As they watch the homeowners know they need to be prepared for the possibility of losing their homes. Even if their homes are spared, there will be a dramatic change in the scenery. A view of acres of fire scar is quite different from the forested beauty that attracted them to live in a particular location.

Downwind, Denver has been shrouded in smoke. People with severe allergies, asthma, and other breathing disorders are being advised to stay indoors and protect themselves. The Eastern Slopes of the Colorado Rockies are heavily populated. There will be a lot of people affected whose homes are not immediately threatened.

Some of us sit in our homes at the edge of the forest and know that our turn may come one day. When people live in forests, fire is always a possibility. So we watch and wait and pray and think about the people who live in other areas. And we remember and talk about the fires that have burned in the hills and the times when we watched the smoke plumes and the nightglow of the flames.

So add the families who wait and watch to your prayer list. May they find community in the support of others. May they continue to stay safe. And, when the fires have been extinguished, may they find courage and strength for rebuilding.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.