Fire!

Fire—summer and dog days—oppressive heat over an extended period, and even in Helena where most nights cool off, it is wearing.

Image: Wiki Commons

I think back on summers filled with smoke and my senses go on high alert. One of those summers, I had an artist’s residency at a cabin in the Lincoln area. Oblivious to what was occurring in the valley below, I hiked with dogs, sketched, and read. The cabin had bats which would fly out at night adding an edge of "goosebumpery" to the stay. One night the dogs woke me to be let out and in stepping out the door I saw the sky lit up with dancing green bands of color—the northern lights, or aurora borealis. 

Image: US Forest Service 

The next evening, sitting around the campfire, a spotter plane circled like a mosquito over the campsite, causing me to douse the fire. That night dry lightning, then the sound of trucks and human noise as a hot shot team beat down strike areas. We heard them more than saw them, though on my ramble with my dogs the next morning, I found several spots blackened by fire. Later in the morning the hot shot crew stopped by camp and warned us to be ready to leave at any point. 

A visit from a friend later in the afternoon brought information of the Spokane Creek fire and evacuations in the valley below. I drove in to Lincoln to try to check on my mom who lived off Spokane Creek at the time. I didn’t connect with her, but her neighbor said she’d evacuated to my house, so at least I knew she was safe. Relief, and a last restless night at cabin, heading down into the Helena valley the next morning was like entering in to Dante’s inferno—the valley filled with roiling yellow black smoke and the smell of burning wood, instincts signaling danger, danger!