After not seeing my brother and sister and their families in Oregon for over two years because of COVID, I redeemed air miles, wore a mask, and flew west July 27th from Minnesota to visit. I love the Pacific Northwest and its history and gorgeous scenery. Our flight landed around midnight so passengers saw no scenery on the trip out. The afternoon return flight a week later normally lets us see tall snowcapped Mt. Hood, Adams, Rainier, and more peaks.
For several brief minutes, I glimpsed a patch of Rocky Mountain peaks, but then everything else got socked in by a thick pall of smoke from burning forest fires. In fact, that dense smoke drifted over a large part of our continent and is still causing problems. A week earlier, central Minnesota had days warning people of poor air quality from more wood smoke and particles drifting south in large amounts from giant fires burning in Manitoba and Ontario, Canada.
Friends tell me that unusual amounts of heavy smoke are also presently covering much of Europe, and that right now Russia and Siberia are fighting wild fires that are now larger than all other fires in the world.
That hits me personally. I’ve done forest fire fighting in Washington State as well as in British Columbia and Alberta Canada. That mostly meant doing timekeeping/payroll paper work support, but that also meant riding in vehicles literally driving through the wall of flame that was the fire line. Another time, getting home from a fire after being gone three weeks, it meant flying over the fire and onto gorgeous remote untouched areas in a small spotter plane. I will never forget seeing a double waterfall springing from a high mountain most people never see. The beauty is there and the music of the falls whether people are near to see and enjoy or not.
Sometimes at fires we had to move camps to safer areas as fires spread. We had to help asthmatics and those suffering blisters and literal burns. I was thrilled the night that darkness fell before a tent city could be put up near where Canada’s Yukon joins the Northwest Territories, so a nurse and I shared a comfortable motel room instead of tent camping in the rain.
Fires create good and bad memories that don’t go away. Once when high wind blew flames toward our small British Columbia, Canada, village and there was no other help, everyone hit our knees until the wind suddenly reversed, burned back over itself, and then burned out. You never forget things like that.
Fires have a natural part in reseeding and repopulating forests, too many rage from uncontrolled resources to flame out of control. With heavy smoke drifting over so many areas, it is an important time to pray for the literal fires we see around us and the equally serious but less visible fires burning in our nations.
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