What a Wildfire Taught Me

It was probably caused by a faulty utility line. Something sparked. I saw the smoke curling skyward on the dry hillside above a gated community at the mouth of the box canyon I live in. It was mid-morning and we were wary. My son’s friend called; she lived in that gated community. She was alone and had to evacuate her family’s house. Was she selfish in wanting to fill her car with her precious harp rather than family treasures? The fire exploded on the dry mountainside; the wind picked up and carried embers far and wide. We weren’t worried about unsorted mementos anymore.

The Waldo Canyon fire started on June 23, 2012, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was one of the most destructive wildfires in Colorado’s history at the time. Two people died, 347 homes were destroyed, and 18,247 acres burned. It took two weeks to finally quell it.

The next afternoon, June 24, the fire was threatening my town, my home. A friend called and told me that my family could come to her house if we needed to evacuate. When the call came at 1 AM, we had already loaded up our cars. We left our house, assuming it was lost. The police went door to door, and emergency vehicles blared horns to wake people. Everyone knew they had to leave. The fire was visible on the ridge overlooking the town. Despite the canyon having just two ways to exit, our community’s departure was orderly and quick.

I packed some clothes, my computer, photos, and baby books. My husband packed any important papers in the house and some clothes. My sons took their guitar, violin, and mandolin. One had just purchased several business suits for a college internship, and he brought them. The other had a pet gecko who came with us. We had what comforted us and what we couldn’t imagine replacing. Our material lives were completely simplified.

The next day, we began to settle into my friend’s house. From her house, we could see the fire several miles away eating up the mountainside, raging. “It could be a while,” she said. She took me to see a movie – which one, I don’t remember. It was cool in the theater, and the smoke was filtered out of the air. My nervous system had some respite.

Wildfire simply burns everything. The fire didn’t distinguish between rich and poor, junk and treasures. Homes, businesses, forests, and grasslands all just burned. People, animals, birds, and insects were displaced or killed. Even the soil where the fire burned so hot was transformed, solidified into an impermeable mass that would shed water, leading to the floods. Everything was equal in the face of a fire.

Then the wind changed direction. The flames were pushed away from our town, and it was saved. There wasn’t any tinder on the ground to lead the fire back, either. Genuinely, we were delivered. We moved back home after just one night away. It seemed miraculous. Relieved and shaken, we were so very grateful.

The fire continued to grow nearby. Friends were living under threat. One day the fire created its own weather and lifted a huge, dense cloud of cinders and ash over a large housing development. The cloud collapsed and brought down the fire, destroying hundreds of homes.

From our front porch, we heard the constant drone of helicopters retrieving water from reservoirs in the mountains to dump on the fire. Firefighters, evacuation centers, and food banks showed up, seemingly out of nowhere. The air quality was dangerous. The community around us continued to pull together even as it suffered.

The Waldo Canyon fire seared lessons into me that I thought I had already learned about our Quaker testimonites. My loved ones and my community are really all that matter. I can live more simply than I ever thought. Natural disasters impact everyone and everything. We are equal in the eyes of nature.

Recovery, however, is not equal. People with resources were able to rebuild and remake their lives more easily than those without resources

Fires have physical consequences that reverberate for a long time. Our town had devastating flash floods in the summer thunderstorms for two years after the fires. The charred mountainside is just now covered again with vegetation. The wildlife was uprooted and found itself too close to humans for a few years. I continue to learn to live more gently on the earth.

Fires also have psychological reverberations. We were physically unscathed, but my husband still twitches when a helicopter goes over our house, 14 years later. My neighbor calls any time she smells smoke. I am watchful every time we have a thunderstorm. I can continue to heal and support others’ healing.

In the Rocky Mountain West, fire is a fact of life, evermore so as our climate changes. This particular fire may have trained me for the next ones. It also showed me where I can use my talents and Friends’ testimonies to try to lessen the impact of the next one.

Molly Wingate is a member of Colorado Springs Friends Meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Molly is also a workshop leader, poet, and a former member of the Board of Directors of Western Friend. She published a blog entitled Plain Speaking which can be found here.