{"id":41,"date":"2026-04-02T22:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/?p=41"},"modified":"2026-04-02T22:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T22:40:20","slug":"fear-and-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/fear-and-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and\u00a0Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

I first notice the aspen in the summer of 2019. Hundreds of tiny shoots, each one with its tip sheared off by the tractor cutting the field. The irony catches in my throat \u2014 it\u2019s the beginning of fire season, and we\u2019ve just mowed down a potential firebreak.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I bought the land in 1988, summers were hot but never scary. No one talked about \u201cfire season,\u201d and \u201cflying embers\u201d wasn\u2019t a term in anyone\u2019s vocabulary. The neighbouring fields were green and well-tended. Mine was planted in alfalfa and managed by my neighbour Rick, a gentle, soft-spoken man who surprised me that first summer with a cheque for ninety dollars for my share of the crop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve done all the work,\u201d I said. \u201cWhy pay me?\u201d
He grinned as he handed me the cheque. \u201cYou own the land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Rick died in 2004, I stopped cutting that field, assuming the vegetation would compost down and improve the soil. I didn\u2019t know uncut grass takes ages to decompose. By the summer of 2015, the field was a thick mass of dried-out grass and weeds, the perfect tinder for a flying ember, a term in everyone\u2019s vocabulary now with wildfires burning all around us \u2013 200 hectares at Lynch Creek to the north, 4,400 hectares near Rock Creek to the west, and the massive Stickpin Fire just over the border in Washington State, an out-of-control inferno that would eventually grow to almost 31,000 hectares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The field was never a natural grassland.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The fear in our small community of Grand Forks is palpable, and when fiery embers blow across the Washington border, fear turns to anger at the unkempt fields: \u201cWhat the hell is wrong with people?\u201d \u201cThose overgrown fields are a bloody fire hazard!\u201d \u201cPeople are such idiots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My stomach clenches. I\u2019m one of those idiots. My two acres of dry grass and weeds is less than ten kilometres from the Lynch Creek fire, a short distance for a flying ember. Embarrassed by my negligence, I post a note on our neighbourhood watch page: \u201cIf anyone is available to cut my two acres of dead grass, please pm me. It needs to be cut, baled and hauled away . . . and yes, why am I only thinking of this now is a good question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one replies. Of course not, it\u2019s too risky to pull a swather in a dry, overgrown field in the middle of summer. One strike on a stone and the whole field could ignite. There is nothing to do but wait. Wait and hope for rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of August, the Lynch Creek Fire reaches 1,700 hectares. Several of us move our emergency bags to the door and pack family treasures in our vehicles. We huddle together in groups of three or four, feeling vulnerable and helpless as we watch the billowing plumes of smoke rise in the distance. Some days, smoke smothers the entire valley, grounding helicopters and leaving fire crews without air support as they battle the flames and build fire guards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, the hot, dry days of summer give way to fall. The fire guards hold, the rains come and the flames are gradually extinguished. The air smells fresh again and, as temperatures cool, morning dew bathes the land. It\u2019s as if the earth remembers to breathe and so do we, exhaling in relief that we made it through the 2015 summer of fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing among the aspen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forest"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/233.srajak.imgd.ca\/project-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}