Smoky Memories, once again

A recycled post from the archives -- with update.

There's a fire in the mountains about 50 miles away. We're not in danger, but the smoke plumes over us during the day, and flows down the canyons at night. The Sacramento valley looks like an inland sea, the hills are gray, and the house smells like chipotle, which isn't bad . . . for a while anyway.

I woke up at 3:07 last night with an acrid presence in my sinuses. Couldn't sleep. The security light next to the house kept going on and off -- thirsty skunks at the water trough, I guess. Then came the smoky memories . . . .

A sunny spring day in 1950, Lafayette Elementary School, San Francisco

I'm looking towards the classroom window and freedom outside, smelling burning eucalyptus leaves in Golden Gate Park. It's beautiful outside, and I hear the cries of peacocks in the park . . . why am I being held captive? Then the teacher calls my father for a meeting. Apparently he is clueless. Unless he can influence my behavior, she dreads another week of school. She advises him to lower his expectations for my future. My mother says he was rather glum that weekend.

1952. San Francisco. Geary street between 40th and 39th avenues

We hear the fire engines before we smell the smoke. Burning linoleum. When the firemen arrive, my friend Clayton, who lives in the burning house is dancing and leaping for joy. He started the fire. Luckily the fire department puts it out before it reaches the basement, where we used to play with a box of machine gun ammo left over from the war.

1958, A Thanksgiving fieldtrip to Bridleveil Campground (now closed), Yosemite National Park

A field trip for science nerds--student members of the California Academy of Sciences. It is cold, so cold that my fellow nerds are raiding my plant press for newsprint to insulate their sleeping bags. This is irritating, but I can't complain. My bag needs insulation too. We also warm our feet in front of the campfire, and I am the only one who doesn't heed the smell of burning rubber. It is hard keeping up with my friends wearing boots with curled soles.

1982, December. Royal Chitawan National Park, Nepal

The sun is a red rubber ball. At 3:00 PM there's enough smoke in the air that you can look at it without burning holes in your retinas. The villagers are lighting fires in and out of the park. Not to worry, they're not wildfires. Indian rollers and drongos follow the flames and glean smoke-dazed insects with frazzled wings. The firing of the terai is an ancient rite that's good for ungulates. In a few weeks chital and great one-horned Asian rhinos, not to mention cattle and buffaloes will be munching on the greensward. Burning grass smells sharp, but burning sal (Shorea robusta) smells like incense.

c. 1985. Chitawan again, Smithsonian-Nepal Tiger Ecology Project

Sweating in my skivies under a mosquito net, upstairs in a wooden bungalow, I am a dysenteric zombie trapped in the stench of burning elephant dung. There is no escape. The mahouts burn green dung balls as a nightly ritual. It's a sanitary practice. Like Gunga Din, Bishnu delivers electrolytes and bottles of water three times a day. I make dozens of trips to the loo, day and night. A Swedish tour group sees me creaking down the stairs in my stained skivies. They think I'm a druggie. I don't care. My only goal is to get to the loo without you-know-whating myself.

c. 1990. near Bangalore, India

Riding in a taxi with the late "Doctor K" (for Krishnamurthy), I scent something familiar and appealing in the air. "Doc, is that hamburger I am smelling? Doc laughs wildly in his falsetto and then replies, "No, you are smelling a crematorium". 

At 4:30 I am staring at the vague movement of the ceiling fan in darkness. The redhead asks if I want the radio on. I do.

The BBC reports the state of the world. Pavarotti has died and Putin is selling arms to Indonesia . . .

There will be no more double espresso iced coffees with lunch.

[August, 2012: Since writing this I have fallen back on having an iced espresso after lunch, but now I limit myself to a single.]  

The distraction of fire

You're damn right the codger's been quiet. The Humbolt fire, which started on June 11 was too close for comfort and a lot of good people lost their homes. We packed our bags the first day, and then sat around listening to the radio. The fire started on Doe Mill Ridge as seen above from our place. It crossed Butte Creek Canyon, climbed the next ridge, and swept through lower Paradise, the next town down the slope from us.

Hale and rain arrived 10 days later, but not enough to have an effect. Instead, a spot fire broke out under a power line about a mile away from home, and this is what we saw.



A spotter plane and a tanker showed up that afternoon, and 6 dumps of retardant put it out.

Bearing witness is a helpless feeling, and a lot of strange and foreboding thoughts flash through the mind, but your esteem of firefighters soars.

By Sunday the 22nd, it was time to get away. There was no call for evacuation in our neighborhood, it was just that the redhead was fretting so much. We drove 125 miles to the Sierra Nevada Field Campus to meet Jim Steele and put out some camera traps.

We passed a new fire that had just started in the lower Feather River Canyon, and just beyond Quincy we saw this. No, those are not clouds.



SF State's field campus was well beyond the lightning strikes. It was a lovely afternoon, and we set four camera traps.



I couldn't resist placing two in an alder thicket.



The signs of mountain beaver were everywhere.

One good thing has come out of the smoke and fire. I've been housebound and busy hammering out a camera trapping manual for the workshop in a couple weeks.

Into the smoke

It was time to get out of the house yesterday and prime the adrenalin pump. I was tired of shallow breathing and inactivity. So I suggested a ride to the upper falls of Deer Creek, making no reference to destinations beyond (and closer to the fire.

"What about all the fire and smoke up there?", asked the redhead.

"Well, the weather report showed the smoke blowing to the southwest, and the road is open". That quelled her concerns.

We were driving up Rt 32 listening to Car Talk on the radio and the smoke was getting thicker, when the redhead observed that "breathing smoke can be bad for your health".

At this point in the program Ray was dissing his older brother about being "a city guy" with not an iota of the nature lover in his bones. The perfect cue for a change of topic.

"I always wonder if a month of outward bound would work on someone like Tommy Magliozzi. Do you think it would convert him to birdwatching and collecting pine cones?"

"We're getting closer to the fire," answered the redhead.

It was clear that the smoke was still spilling down the creek valleys, but it made for a pleasing background effect at the falls.



We lingered for a while, and I photographed the fish ladder tunnel. It's an impressive feat of engineering, but the sign says the salmon didn't like it.



My wife agreed to continue the ride to Lassen National Park. Apparently the smoke was affecting her thinking.

There was no one at the entrance booth. Everyone in the park looked to be our age or older, so maybe there was no need. We all have Golden Age passes, you know, and get in for free. It was good to see crews working on Sunday and removing white fir. With decades of fire control this highly flammable species has turned groves of jeffrey pine into thickets.

So the moonlight fire rages on. It is 15% in containment, and has scorched 52,000 acres. The smoke was thick even in Lassen, and we didn't see a single pika. They were all underground, probably with asthma.