Paradise Lost

Just in the last few days, the Camp Fire in Northern California was designated as contained.  The Camp Fire virtually devoured the town of Paradise.  According to the most recent estimates, the Camp Fire utterly destroyed some 13,972 homes and 528 commercial structures.  The death toll presently stands at over 80.  But hundreds are still officially unaccounted for.

This was an actual town lost—a city of 26,000 people—nestled into a pine forest.

We have some smaller towns just like that here in Montana: Lincoln, West Yellowstone, Big Fork, and more.

Montana has had some bad fire seasons recently (and it is a natural season).  2017 was our worst in history.  That year, Montana saw 1.4 million acres scorched within her borders.  This included the 270,000 acre Lodgepole Complex Fire that swept unchecked through mostly grasslands and ranches in Eastern Montana.

We are pretty smart, standing here at the thin edge of this century.  We now have the capability to compute our way through skyscraper-sized columns of mathematical formulas in nanoseconds.  We can flick spacecraft to Mars and beyond.  We trick tomatoes and cucumbers into thinking they are dimension lumber and first cousin to insecticides.  We have turned sound into a tool that can see the complex insides of once impenetrable solid objects.  We fashion heavy metals into fluff.  But old-fashioned range fires can still kick our ass.

Paradise is a cautionary tale.

 — Mitchell Hegman