The Seasons of Fire by David J. Strohmaier

Author:David J. Strohmaier [Strohmaier, David J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781647790295
Publisher: University of Nevada Press

Our two-track across Rodman weaves through stands of gnarled old juniper, some with bases up to forty-eight inches or more in diameter. These are the kind of trees that are most receptive to a lightning bolt’s lurid tickle, and they are also the nastiest to extinguish: interiors rotten and hollow and, once ablaze, filled with molten punk; trunks disfigured and split; a jungle of branches, all tugging in opposite directions, from which sawyers do their best to judge which bearing of gravity will have its way. From the branches of these old junipers hang dendritic beards of fluorescent-green lichen. The ground encircling their trunks is carpeted by thick, bulbous mats of moss that fill in between pockmarked chunks of basalt, like grass between garden stepping stones. In other places, where there are no rocks, the spongy moss radiates out around the trees’ trunks only about as far as the branches provide shade. And directly under the trees, on this mat of moss and duff, there is a blanket of rust-colored needles.

Our smoke was turned in two nights ago by Tower Point lookout, seventeen miles to the northeast. Yesterday, an engine crew searched the rim in vain and, at one point, even caught a whiff of smoke before finally giving up. Eventually, the lookout lost sight of the smoke’s nibbling rise-form. Was it out or merely lying low?

We drive through squatty, grizzled junipers, clumps of decadent sage, and burnt-out snags in search of a fire that has eluded our predecessors’ grasp, and we do so with the hope that a little heat is still entombed in the snag’s stump. The smoke we’re looking for would take a fairly low priority during a busy fire season; today, however, we’re living along that elongated edge of downtime. So we continue searching. We occasionally glass the horizon for haze or puffs that might belie the smoldering snag’s readout. We also keep the windows rolled down, just in case a breeze delivers the familiar aroma of burning bark and rat shit.

An excursion like this is a portrait of irony. As the rig’s granny gear lifts us up and down over what for all practical purposes are small boulders, and as we grimace at the screech of rock scraping oil pan and differential, we drive past the many casualties of previous lightning storms. This area is peppered with the slumped-over, burnt-out carcasses of junipers. Typically, these trees consist of blackened trunks that rise up six to ten feet, at which point skeletons of outstretched branches droop out from their still hollow cores, a limp, fire-induced impotence. Some snags—by virtue of their jet-black, charcoal-skinned trunks and golden, fire-seared needles—were probably struck down only a year or two ago. Others, mossed over, weathered gray, and speckled with orange and white lichens, have nakedly battled the elements for a decade or more. Most of these burnt snags are solitary, and they are often surrounded by green trees of approximately the same age. These lightning-struck trees flamed out quickly, unwilling

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