The Wallow Fire

(Please click on the title for a reading aloud by the author.)

The dense cloud of smoke drifts closer, first, high among the clouds and then lower and lower. I go around the house and close the windows. The Sandias disappear from view, then the cloud wraps around the Ortiz, then Los Cerrillos, Petroglyph Hill and at the worst of it I can only just make out my neighbor’s house less than a mile away. The Wallow fire is over 200 miles (322 km) away in eastern Arizona. I have never seen anything like this. It touches something elemental in me, I am uneasy, and want to take flight.

It is an acrid cloud smelling of burning grass and oddly, the pungent sweetness of apple wood. Sunset nears and the sun is completely obscured by the cloud. A gentle wind blows from the west, the air is hot though it feels soft. The sky is warm chalky grey, taking on a sickly yellow orange pallor as darkness comes. With the night, a thick cloak falls over the land, it is utterly dark.

As of this writing the fire has consumed 720 square miles (1865 sq. km) and 502 structures, it has been burning since 29 May and is only 10 percent contained. The cause is known to be related to human activity, and an abandoned camp fire is suspected. Imagine if you knew you were the one to have caused something like this.

Gordon Bunker