A dozen summers ago a raging forest fire came screaming over the Western Rim of the Wind River Canyon; I was here at our cabin for the entire frightening event.  I'd known of the dangers of living in the country; figured we were prepared; we weren't, at least not emotionally.  Sure, I'd seen those faces of people on the news; a forest fire coming, or maybe their mountain dream home was reduced to ashes already.  But nothing prepared me for what came over the mountain that late summer afternoon in 2001; the fire line was so intense the huge planes dropping retardant couldn't stop it's sprinting into the Canyon; this was a real forest fire and it's coming our way!

     I had big commercial sprinklers for the yard and trees, but now I had two of them duck taped to our roof! and five more scattered around our yard.  Our cabin property (Hogbats) here in the Wind River Canyon is everything we struggled so hard for our whole lives, and now a forest fire was crackling within earshot; we could hear it coming to get us from our bed; it all seemed bizarrely personal.  We had an advantage, or so we thought, because the Wind River was between us and the forest fire; any wind in the Wind River Canyon, and there's always some kind of breeze, and it would jump easily to our side we were told; I was freaked!

     As we sat in the open garage in lawn chairs, water and embers flying everywhere, the sound a juniper makes exploding into flames is nearly priceless.  The only thing I can compare the sound of a dry summer juniper, suddenly going up into flames, is the Bunsen Burner we used in school as children; the pine trees' resin acts like a food for the running fire.  We couldn't sleep, or at least I didn't, and here it comes!  

     There were some firemen from a small town nearly 70 miles away, in two big red trucks, that sat and watched the fire eating the Canyon and it's wildlife; and drank sodas for two weeks, and never lifted a finger to do anything.  When some men from the railroad showed up one morning on the tracks, and tried in vain to halt the forest fire, one of the "firemen" turned to me and said, "My boss would be angry if they saw that."  I realized at that moment that we were on our own; I was going to put together a plan that would save our little cabin, no help from the "pros."

     But a minor miracle occurred in the Wind River Canyon that week; when the forest fire got down to the railroad line there was no wind! the forest fire just up and died on us, that was it, we were spared this time.  I now live with the knowledge that a forest fire will come again, because After the Fires, Wind River Canyon, WyomingTwelve Years after the Fires in the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. they've been here before! and that fear in those people's eyes on CNN that live through a real forest fire....I've seen that aching fear in my mirror.  Two months later, after some early snow, green shoots were emerging from the ash.

     This blog's photograph was taken Thursday morning from our front steps, and as you can plainly see for yourself, there still is evidence of the fire even after a dozen summers; Mother Nature has provided a beautiful cover-up, but now we don't feel safe anymore, because it's now a matter of when........................