It's the ash out here that's a problem. I am hanging my white wash in the ash, thinking it could be dry before it turns grey. There is a stiff wind, and most of my undies are dry in ten minutes. The fire is burning swiftly up the mountain in the direction of The Ranch, my friend's place near Keswick Dam. If the fire burns at the dam, an environmental cleanup site, maybe hundreds of fish downstream would die of the acidic conditions. No one can really predict the worst case scenario.
I'm thinking about the young bears I saw this spring in Whiskeytown Park, ambling up steep grades that are now completely blackened. I wonder where they are now. I wonder if the firefighters have seen them. Fire is one of those natural disasters that obliterates everything in its path. A few structures are nothing to a blaze on a hundred-and-fifteen-degree day. What I wonder is, whether or not to volunteer to help or get out. I have an online course to upgrade. Work goes on, wherever we now are.
I suppose that's what happens in a war, too. Thick smoke chokes everything, and there is the terror of constant air traffic overhead. I've become accustomed to low-flying copters and water bombers, to the sound of the whole airfield activating at eight in the morning, the turning of propellers as clear as day when I cannot see across the nearby school yard. Work and life continue, and a woman hangs out her wash in the ashy wind-driven heat.
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