Wild Fire

The following was written in the summer of 2009, during a wild fire which plagued the landscape near Fintry which is in my homeland of the Okanagan Valley. It's descriptive practice, which I did to remind myself of the peculiar feeling of danger and impending disaster that permeates the world at such times. If you have never been near a wild fire, perhaps from this you will feel a little of what I felt on this day of July 21st 2009 at the family Lake Lot or 'Brost Post.' The following is never before seen and was written directly from my own observations. The original title of this piece is 'What it's Like to be in the Valley of a Wild Fire.' Hopefully you enjoy.

Firstly, it doesn’t smell like smoke. The smell is more like that of a warm crisp waffle cone, a scent that isn’t menacing, yet gives one pause as they step outside. Beyond the safe confines of the trailer, garish yellow light crawls across the dry grass of the lawn, turning all the world to gold. This too, is unnatural and is everywhere, highlighting everything one can see in this colour. It turns the normally soft colour of an orange freezie almost neon as the cold sugary liquid spills onto the grass, bright against the dying blades. Beyond the shore, highlighted against the opposite shore one can clearly note what looks like mist hovering several feet off the water, but what is actually smoke. It hovers there, sinister and alien while looking down the valley, one might actually see cottony clouds of more of the gas, thick and viscous. Above, on only one side of the valley the sky is bright blue, the true colour but down the valley, towards the inferno hidden by the belching burning white gas, the sky is a yellowish sort of cream. There’s a gradient between the cream and the white, which stretches across your horizon. Finally, because it's summer it is hot, but a different kind of hot. This is a humid heat, not from the caress of the distant fire, but from the heat which bounces off the land to be deflected back down at the world by the smoky blanket. It’s an oppressive heat, which can make you sweat proficiently, even while sitting still and relaxed. It gives you cause for worry, as in the forest the animals hide or flee. They know, and distantly you do as well that danger may be coming, that you should leave this place; yet you stay anyway, because reports say the fire is too far away.