Prevent the Madness!

So, there's been huge forest fires around here, which started in Idaho and now are actually surrounding the Missoula area. People are a bit freaked out by it all, because there is a literal haze over everything, and a deep wood-burning smell pervades all things. You can't even make out the surrounding mountains in the distance. You just see a speckled mass of white, like Paul Bunyan had a great big sneeze of white pepper. Besides being scared of the fire (I-90 had been briefly closed and a some people living outside Missoula had to evacuate their homes), people seem truly alarmed by the smoke itself. One dean told me how he wakes up with his eyes all caked up and runny (ew), and how he can hardly breathe. There was even a warning in the daily newspaper that the young and elderly should stay indoors at all times.

Well, not me! This girl's made of tougher stuff! After three years in Bangkok, a city that THRIVES on a constant state of thick, scratchy smog, this is kid stuff. After consistently watching the churning water in my washing machine turn from clear to the color of rich chocolate milk, I fear not a little dirt. After being so dirty and sweaty you have to shower twice a day, three times in the "hot season," I laugh at a little forest fire smoke. Ha! Ha ha!

Of course, now Mother Nature will fuck me up and give me some allergy or something, just for my arrogance.

As usual in Missoula though, I feel removed from it all. Forest fires are not a phenomenon I've ever really experienced, besides the occasional shoving of Smokey the Bear in my face, with the ominous, "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Only me? Seriously? I mean, aren't a lot of these forest fires a simple and natural part of nature? Aren't they good for the ecosystem? I don't have a lot of education on this, but I thought they were a healthy part of the forest's cycle of rebirth, adding nutrients to the soil and allowing for new, healthy growth. Yeah, yeah, I know Smokey is referring to people who are careless with campfires, shut up.

I'm used to monsoon drown-you-in-five-minutes rain, tornadoes, blizzards, and even the cute little dust storm or flash flood now and again, but the threat of forest fires is new. So, just as when you're in a foreign country walking around a bad neighborhood, I am unaware and basically aloof from it all. I'm sure if I saw flames careening down the mountain toward my apartment building, it'd be one helluva wake-up call, but that seems so far-fetched to be almost a fairy tale (good thing we were forced to get renter's insurance before we moved in).

Driving to Shop-n-Smile each night, I often see the Smokejumpers helicopters flying by. If you don't know what these are, they consist of crazy men and women who jump out of helicopters to land amidst some distant forest region which is heartily ablaze. Here's part of the literal definition: "[their] primary job is to suppress wildfires in remote mountainous terrain." Let me repeat that, REMOTE mountainous terrain! REMOTE terrain that is ON FIRE! They parachute down, with their supplies tumbling quickly after them, and are expected to stay down there in the "roadless" areas until its deemed they can come back home. There's even a school for these crazy mo fo's here in Missoula! Oh, and they have "also been used as tree climbers in New York and Chicago for an ongoing insect eradication program." ?? Wtf?

I've never really understood the romance of the firefighter myself, beyond the basic 'heroism' part of it, which I get. I've always thought of the reality -- a lot of really heavy equipment, running into burning buildings, being fucking hot ALL the time, etc. And you know, I'm a sweat-er, a really icky one, so that intense heat thing would not be good for me. There's only so much baby powder you can utilize. I'd chafe.