Watching the Fires
24/08/13 05:30
With all of the famous people who frequent the area, there is a certain attraction to Sun Valley Idaho. I made the trip several times during the decade that we lived in Boise. Most of those trips were made in the winter. Baldy is a fun mountain to ski. The prices were high, even then, but the ski resorts had an exchange program that meant that my ski pass from Bogus Basin earned me a discount and there were a few days each year, usually toward the end of the season when the all Idaho program allowed you to ski at any resort with your pass from your home hill. I once performed a wedding in Sun Valley and was given a day’s skiing as an honorarium.
There is a romance associated with the area. After all Earnest Hemingway chose the location for his home after he had lived and worked all around the world. His Ketchum home was his last and the place of his death. For someone like me, soaking up a bit of the culture of a writer is always interesting.
During our Boise years, Picabo Street was near the top of her game, having earned gold in the Super G at the 1998 Winter Olympics. It was not uncommon to see her making runs on the mountain. I admired her from a distance. She wasn’t part of the money crowd. Her family couldn’t afford to live in Sun Valley when she was growing up. Instead they lived on a farm near Triumph. Her name comes from another small nearby town: Picabo.
I never fit in at Sun Valley. I wasn’t interested in the coordinated ski outfits in the current colors. I thought that the duct tape on my ski pants was a sign of honor. I earned those tears with some great falls. I never had new ski equipment, obtaining mine from the ski swaps. I would occasionally stop by the thrift shop run by the library, where I could get brand new silk ties for a couple of dollars. Other than food and ski passes, that was all I ever bought in Sun Valley. I’m not exactly the kind of person who runs with the rich and famous.
Still, it seems sad to me to think of the Big Wood Valley filled with smoke and the rich and famous people being evacuated from their homes. A week ago they were calling the fire the “Beaver Creek Fire.” Now they are calling it “The Beast.” Drought conditions are exaggerated by the unique terrain and the natural interface of desert and forest of the Idaho front. With the Sawtooths to the north, the desert to the south, the hills are covered with brush and other easy fuels for fast-moving fires.
It is a story that is being repeated over and over across the west. With at least 50 major fires burning out of control, the forest service has exhausted its funds for firefighting. With a billion spent and no end in sight, other programs such as conservation, access improvement, restoration and prevention will face the budget axe in order to pay the bills from the rest of the fire season.
There are three active fires burning in Yellowstone National Park. After 1988, I have a bit of a different attitude about fire in that beloved place, and my fear and worry is a bit smaller than it once was. Still I hate to think of the trees around Fishing Bridge and Mud Volcano being burned away. The Lake is one of the most gorgeous places in the world and part of its beauty is the way the trees come right down to the water’s edge.
And the big fire in California has now spread into Yosemite. Just outside that park a gated community that is another hangout for the rich and famous has been evacuated. Having money and fame do not make you any less vulnerable to the ravages of an out of control forest fire. The rich people will find safety and will find ways to recover from their losses, but if you are a small business person eking out a living providing service to those folks, making up the lost business from a summer of fire might be more than your reserves will tolerate. If you are a cleaner in a motel or a dishwasher in a restaurant, the fire-forced layoff spells financial disaster. The rich and famous can board their private jets and go anywhere they want. The people who provide their services are still stuck in the valley breathing the smoke and wondering what happens now that the paychecks have run out.
There could easily be another two months of fires before winter weather comes to the rescue. Hundreds of firefighters are risking their lives every day on each of the fires.
We don’t know what else to do. The firefighters are trained to protect homes and other structures. Fire lines sometimes hold. Backburns can create zones with no fuel for the fire to spread. It is not a good time to discuss philosophy or even fire ecology. While the positive effects of fire are known, so too are the destructive effects. And the forest service doesn’t have any extra money to fund research, buy back homes in vulnerable areas or conduct public education and prevention. For the rest of the summers, the crews will work hard, try to keep safe, and hold on until the end. For some of the firefighters the summer’s wages will support a winter of ski bumming, maybe even at Sun Valley. Last I heard they were running all of the mountain’s snow making machines full time in an effort to protect the trees and equipment on the mountain.
Far away, in South Dakota, where things are just beginning to dry out after a wonderful spring and summer with ample rainfall, we are grateful for our conditions and know that our turn will come. When the drought returns to the hills there are acres and acres of tinder-dry conditions and plenty of beetle-killed trees to provide fuel for really big fires. This is not our summer, thankfully. But as we watch and wait and pray for the safety of the firefighters, it won’t hurt for us to work hard at thinning fuels and doing what we can to help the firefighters when we have our season of fires.
In the forest, it is not “if” you have a fire, it is “when” you have a fire.
There is a romance associated with the area. After all Earnest Hemingway chose the location for his home after he had lived and worked all around the world. His Ketchum home was his last and the place of his death. For someone like me, soaking up a bit of the culture of a writer is always interesting.
During our Boise years, Picabo Street was near the top of her game, having earned gold in the Super G at the 1998 Winter Olympics. It was not uncommon to see her making runs on the mountain. I admired her from a distance. She wasn’t part of the money crowd. Her family couldn’t afford to live in Sun Valley when she was growing up. Instead they lived on a farm near Triumph. Her name comes from another small nearby town: Picabo.
I never fit in at Sun Valley. I wasn’t interested in the coordinated ski outfits in the current colors. I thought that the duct tape on my ski pants was a sign of honor. I earned those tears with some great falls. I never had new ski equipment, obtaining mine from the ski swaps. I would occasionally stop by the thrift shop run by the library, where I could get brand new silk ties for a couple of dollars. Other than food and ski passes, that was all I ever bought in Sun Valley. I’m not exactly the kind of person who runs with the rich and famous.
Still, it seems sad to me to think of the Big Wood Valley filled with smoke and the rich and famous people being evacuated from their homes. A week ago they were calling the fire the “Beaver Creek Fire.” Now they are calling it “The Beast.” Drought conditions are exaggerated by the unique terrain and the natural interface of desert and forest of the Idaho front. With the Sawtooths to the north, the desert to the south, the hills are covered with brush and other easy fuels for fast-moving fires.
It is a story that is being repeated over and over across the west. With at least 50 major fires burning out of control, the forest service has exhausted its funds for firefighting. With a billion spent and no end in sight, other programs such as conservation, access improvement, restoration and prevention will face the budget axe in order to pay the bills from the rest of the fire season.
There are three active fires burning in Yellowstone National Park. After 1988, I have a bit of a different attitude about fire in that beloved place, and my fear and worry is a bit smaller than it once was. Still I hate to think of the trees around Fishing Bridge and Mud Volcano being burned away. The Lake is one of the most gorgeous places in the world and part of its beauty is the way the trees come right down to the water’s edge.
And the big fire in California has now spread into Yosemite. Just outside that park a gated community that is another hangout for the rich and famous has been evacuated. Having money and fame do not make you any less vulnerable to the ravages of an out of control forest fire. The rich people will find safety and will find ways to recover from their losses, but if you are a small business person eking out a living providing service to those folks, making up the lost business from a summer of fire might be more than your reserves will tolerate. If you are a cleaner in a motel or a dishwasher in a restaurant, the fire-forced layoff spells financial disaster. The rich and famous can board their private jets and go anywhere they want. The people who provide their services are still stuck in the valley breathing the smoke and wondering what happens now that the paychecks have run out.
There could easily be another two months of fires before winter weather comes to the rescue. Hundreds of firefighters are risking their lives every day on each of the fires.
We don’t know what else to do. The firefighters are trained to protect homes and other structures. Fire lines sometimes hold. Backburns can create zones with no fuel for the fire to spread. It is not a good time to discuss philosophy or even fire ecology. While the positive effects of fire are known, so too are the destructive effects. And the forest service doesn’t have any extra money to fund research, buy back homes in vulnerable areas or conduct public education and prevention. For the rest of the summers, the crews will work hard, try to keep safe, and hold on until the end. For some of the firefighters the summer’s wages will support a winter of ski bumming, maybe even at Sun Valley. Last I heard they were running all of the mountain’s snow making machines full time in an effort to protect the trees and equipment on the mountain.
Far away, in South Dakota, where things are just beginning to dry out after a wonderful spring and summer with ample rainfall, we are grateful for our conditions and know that our turn will come. When the drought returns to the hills there are acres and acres of tinder-dry conditions and plenty of beetle-killed trees to provide fuel for really big fires. This is not our summer, thankfully. But as we watch and wait and pray for the safety of the firefighters, it won’t hurt for us to work hard at thinning fuels and doing what we can to help the firefighters when we have our season of fires.
In the forest, it is not “if” you have a fire, it is “when” you have a fire.