Ash Sunday



Cabin front yard - AFTER Photo by E. Gorman used with permission



Fire. One of the most important elements man learned to harness. The discovery of how to bring forth fire changed the direction of the human path; from scavenger to predator, from hit and run hunter to top of the food chain. We use fire for warmth, cooking, weapons, transportation, decoration and craft. We use fire to our advantage, but sometimes it gets loose and when it does it unleashes a force that is destructive, unpredictable and master of its own domain. It creates its own weather, it builds its own roads. When faced with such fire, we run.





Cabin-Front yard-BEFORE Photo by E. Gorman used with permission



On Sunday June 25 at approximately 1pm Mountain Standard Time, a fire broke out in the mountains behind Los Alamos New Mexico. Within four hours it was estimated at scorching 1000 acres. By the next morning the monster had shown its teeth, destroying 40,000 acres in less than 24 hours and the Las Conchas Fire was born. It was, in some estimations the result of a perfect storm. We had a significantly dry winter (Thank you La Nina, you bitch). Unfortunately, what dried out was the extra fuel that grew during the previous wet summer. Fuel humidity levels were at <3%. Additionally, we experienced a windier than normal spring that turned into a windier than normal summer. Add one downed power line (or whatever they finally decided was the culprit) and the equation was complete. Los Alamos, however, was no stranger to large wildfires. In the spring of 2000 a fire called the Cerro Grande scorched 48,000 acres and then came down into town where it laid waste to 400 or so homes and sent thousands of people running. Infrastructure was destroyed and people were not allowed back to live and work in Los Alamos for two weeks. Los Alamos, of course rebuilt. Finer homes replaced the "temporary" housing built in the 1940s for workers at Los Alamos National Lab, fire suppression systems were improved, emergency operations conducted more drills and made better plans. In short, the town and the Lab learned from the fire. The town was ready in case this should ever happen again-which people knew it wouldn't because the hillsides adjacent to the town were already scorched and scarred-surely this couldn't happen twice. 

Funny thing about fire, sometimes it does what you think it will and others it just acts like it is "all that" and goes and does whatever the hell it wants. The Las Conchas Fire has, as of this writing, burned hundreds of square miles of conifer forest and high desert. It has threatened towns, subdivisions, pueblos, national monuments, sacred native lands and tourist attractions. It took homes (about 63 last I heard) and cabins; little pieces of heaven treasured by their owners. The worst part, however, is that it is still burning. Unlike Cerro Grande, this fire did not abide by the rules of fire warfare. Instead it burned the scars left behind more than a decade ago; areas everyone presumed would act as anchors, preventing fire from getting through. The fuel was so dry that small embers set off explosive flashes that could be seen from town. The town once again evacuated; people were calm and deliberate while they packed what they could of their lives and memories and went down the hill hoping they would see their homes again in one piece. But the heroes fighting this fire, and when I say heroes I mean everyone from the helo pilots to the axe men and women, the incident commanders, the people working the phone lines and running coffee and sandwiches at the Emergency Operations Center, the guys driving water tankers, the volunteers baking banana bread at home and serving food and finding clean clothes for the line fighters and countless nameless others. These heroes worked tirelessly to beat the threat back. If there was any positive about the last fire, it was that it prepared people for this one. The town itself was spared and when the evacuations were lifted, people moved in and started to air out the drapes and water their plants in an attempt to regain some normalcy,  instead of waiting until their power and water could be restored as they did a decade ago.

Fire. It destroys structures and forests and whatever it can get a foothold in. It ruins watersheds and reservoirs.It is not, though, so much the structures that fire destroys that makes it (like water) so terrifying. This fire destroyed relatively few homes, but for those owners and the townspeople who cherish this area, the fire also destroyed a sense of place. People here spend much of their time in the mountains; hunting, collecting, hiking, painting, rock climbing, fishing, swimming, walking their dogs, kids and horses, or just being. The mountains are part of their identity. People move to northern NM for the outdoor living. How does one find a semblance of peace when lush green oases are turned to moonscape? How can people maintain a sense of equilibrium when their home is unrecognizable? How do people who survived Cerro Grande and Las Conchas regain their trust that it won't happen again?

People are adaptive creatures and they will find away. As yet I don't have a different answer. At the moment, the fire still burns endangering our neighbors to the north, south and west and the realities that are coming may mean the danger is not over. Monsoon season starts this month; no time to mitigate the mountains of debris and ash that sit poised to come down after a significant rain.

I was not a resident of Los Alamos when Cerro Grande came to town in 2000. Rather, I was a commuter from Albuquerque; which might as well be a different planet in many respects. I had seen big fires before in northern California, but it was all rather distant to me. I felt truly bad for the people here, but only from a "watching the news, can't go to work yet" sort of way. This time, although our bedroom community was not under mandatory evacuation orders, I was one of them. These were my friends, neighbors and co-workers. All of a sudden I found myself sweeping my walk of ash and ember debris and watering my lawn (conservation day be damned) and hanging on every message that came from the Emergency Operations Center. And now that the immediate danger has passed, I feel the pain and I anguish for the mountains and the people, the lost and displaced animals, the exhausted firefighters and emergency crews. My heart breaks and my lungs ache when the smoke is still so thick that you can't even see the mountains for what looks like brown fog. I weep inside at the thought of thousand-year old Native American sites ruined by fire and I worry for those still in the path of this ravenous beast. But I am also heartened by the outpouring of compassion between neighbors and towns, the generosity of resources and effort, and the fundamental resolve of people in this town and region.

I think it is tempting to compare tragedies. This fire was not a fraction as destructive as the 8.9 earthquake-propelled Tsunami that hit Japan on March 11. The National Lab at which I work was under no threat to lose or spew or blow up anything radioactive (contrary to what the news media reported-accurate as ever-not). Houses and livelihoods were spared here where they were completely destroyed on May 22 when an EF5 multiple-vortex tornado struck Joplin, Missouri. Most importantly, nobody died here. Comparisons, however, at least at this raw point in time, only serve to make people feel bad about that fact that they feel bad. We must experience loss in our own way and in our own context. People must be allowed to grieve for what is lost; whether that loss is personal or collective. In time,  when the helicopters have stopped dropping water, when the fire is finally extinguished, when the smoke clears from the sky, when green returns to the mountains where now there is only black and gray, when the destructive power of fire gives way to its creative other half-clearing the way for new growth -THEN perhaps we can stand back and feel lucky and grateful and maybe learn even more for the next time...

Post Script: A couple of hours after I wrote this post, our first monsoon hit. It was relatively mild, but it brought cool, precious rain and by morning the mountains could once again be seen and the smoke, in our area at least, had diminished. The mountains are wounded to be sure and the fire keeps burning, but the day refreshed hearts and minds and reminded us that even the most terrible things eventually pass.