Horsefly Creek spills down through the next valley over from my cabin. My creek, Hogum, and Horsefly share opposite flanks
of the same mountains. This means—in the
sparest terms—my cabin is something between two and three miles from the
Horsefly Fire presently burning through dense beetle-kill timber.
I have been staying at my cabin all alone for the last two days
and nights, living alongside the fire. During
daylight hours, I hear chainsaws crying against distant trees. I hear helicopters thumping across the
Continental Divide, flying in from prairie staging areas at the feet of the
mountains on the east slopes. Occasionally,
I hear bulldozers clanking and echoing, echoing, echoing through the array of finger-ridges
and thick stands of timber.
The fire has, except for one storm-filled night, clawed in the
opposite direction from my cabin. An estimated
1,350 acres have been ravaged thus far.
Some 532 people were enlisted to fight the fire due to the proximity of so
many houses and cabins in the direction of fire travel.
Thankfully, the fire was listed at 45% contained as of last night
and the people evacuated on the east side of the fire were allowed to return
home. A few hours before darkness
collapsed across my valley, a long soaking rain descended on the mountains.
For the last two days I have been a little lonely. Though I have busied myself with carpentry
and electrical work, I am feeling particularly isolated. Singular.
And my narrow valley has remained eerily calm in the mornings and
evenings. Too quiet. Something-obviously-wrong-but-beautiful quiet.
Surprisingly, smoke has not invaded my space. Sandhill cranes have been calling from the
meadows above me. Hummingbirds have
whizzed by my head. Deer have casually
strolled alongside me.
This morning, I will pack up and leave. The Horsefly Fire is now laying down, shrinking
within the perimeters of fire lines. Not
certain what I might have done (other than flee) if the fire invaded, but it seems
I no longer have to worry.
Posted are a couple photographs from my lonely, yet green,
mountain valley.
August Wildflowers
Hogum Creek
—Mitchell Hegman
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