No... No... Not Again

Monday, July 29, 2024

The little corner of the world where I live is on fire again, up the Big Thompson Canyon, less than 30 miles from my home. Damn. Not again. It's been only four years since the 402,805-acre devastation wrought by the Cameron Peak Fire and East Troublesome Fire.

Twin Fires: July 30-2024

As I sit here in the backyard of my new house in Countryside Park, bits and flakes and chunks of ash fall all around me—and on me. I look up and feel the squeeze of my heart and lungs as the smoke from the Alexander Mountain and Stone Canyon fires wafts toward the east. My memories of the near merging of the Cameron Peak Fire and East Troublesome Fire of 2020 still raise my hackles, and tonight as two new fires threaten to join one another, I feel the prickle in the nape of my neck.

Earlier today, riding my bike home from work along four miles of the Poudre River Trail, the smoke, tinted dark orange from the backlight of the afternoon sun, chased me from behind. The sky above the Northern Colorado section of the Front Range glowed like hellfire, and though not a Christian, I felt as if the Devil had saddled the wind to chase me home. So I rode faster to see if I could outrun him and make his damned fire disappear. But I am no magician, and when I made it home I walked fifty yards to the southwest and stood at the trial head of the River Bend Ponds Natural Area near my new home. Looking at the two massive billows of smoke over the western foothills of the Rockies, I shuddered. I could see the flames of the Alexander Mountain Fire, just as four years prior I could see the flames of the Cameron Peak Fire just behind Horsetooth Reservoir, less than a 20-minute drive from the house where I lived back then.

Twin Fires Plus Two: July 31-2024

I stood for awhile after I shut down my laptop and looked out the patio door. I could smell the 920 acres that had burned throughout the the day. Two o'clock this morning, when I took my sixteen-year-old, blind and deaf Chihuahua out for his first potty of the day, the smell was no longer woody. It was a stench of dead trees. My little five pound dog had no idea what was happening, and I felt jealous of that.

My wife and I met here in 1981. We married that same year. Four years later we had a daughter. We lived our lives outside—winter, spring summer, and fall. We camped Poudre Canyon, fished and rafted the wild and scenic Poudre River several times each year during whitewater season. We often took the forty-minute ride up Big Thompson Canyon to spend an afternoon in Estes Park buying taffy, eating pizza, and buying new Colorado T-shirts and sweatshirts, or we'd hike a “new-to-us trail” through the stunning beauty of Rocky Mountain National Park. In the winter we would sled and toboggan at Hidden Valley inside the park, or sometimes we would take a kick jaunt farther up Highway 7 to ski Eldora Mountain in Nederland, or even farther into the Rockies to ski Winter Park.

State Highway 34 from Loveland to Estes Park was closed this morning, leaving no access into Big Thompson Canyon or Estes Park that did not require a two-hour detour. The fires crews are doing their best to keep the canyon from burning. But it is literally a craggy uphill challenge, made even harder by the encroachment of the Stone Canyon Fire toward the Alexander Mountain burn area. This afternoon on my bike, I could not see the foothills, just 7 miles away. Smoke from two other wildfires along the Front Range—Lake Shore Fire and the Quarry Fire—has blended with the smoke of the two Northern Colorado fires to blot out the Rocky Mountains. The lives my wife and I and our daughter lived forty years ago is being burned—6700 acres as of tonight.

In the wee hours of tomorrow morning, when I take my little dog out for his first potty, I may just sit in a patio chair for a spell and envy his ignorance of the world around us.

Burn, and Burn Again: August 1, 2024

The month of July ended with my town receiving 0.92 inches of precipitation. Not much when you consider most of that fell as ten-minute torrents in just a few days scattered throughout the month—lots of rain at one time each time, but not enough overall to make a difference in the skin-searing dryness that plagues the Rocky Mountains this summer.

The Alexander Fire and the Stone Canyon Fire continue to "blow up" every night since their ignitions. Today the Alexander Fire soared to 8,134 acres, reported by the "epnews” out of Estes Park. More than two dozen homes have burned. The Stone Canyon Fire, which started 25 miles from the Alexander Mountain Fire has reached to within 14 miles this evening. One person is dead. I am sure countless animals are dead: rabbits, snakes, coyotes, foxes, elk, deer... .

In 2020, when the East Troublesome Fire jumped the Continental Divide and joined in adding its destruction to that of the Cameron Peak Fire on Colorado's Western Slope, Hell took control of my world and scorched 296,066 acres, every square inch of a beautiful stretch of Earth at such a temperature that there is no chance life of any kind will return to the Poudre Canyon in my lifetime.

And this evening, as I stand again just 50 yards from my home and look west, I see two massive billows of black smoke that have begun to blend into one cloud of smoky death... and I begin to wonder if Hell has returned to Earth, just as it did in 2020.

Hell has a name: climate change.

Neverending Saga: August 2, 2024

Rather eerie today with so much blue sky, and two fires burning just a stone's throw up the road. The Alexander Mountain Fire has blackened 9,375 acres, and is only 5% contained. Todays rain was not enough to even dampen the smoke, which by evening returned to its prominence across the northern Front Range.

Tonight, three fires burn along the Front Range: Alexander Mountain Fire, Stone Canyon Fire, and Quarry Fire (Jefferson County). The Lake Shore Fire has been 100% contained since yesterday. But on the Western Slope, the Bucktail Fire near Nucla stood at 200 acres yesterday, and tonight has already surpassed 2000 acres. It seems in Colorado, what hasn’t burned is beginning to burn. Wildfires pop up almost daily, and I begin to wonder, with the onset of August and the continuing 95°F+ temperatures drying out and burning the Front Range of Colorado, and the rage of the California Park Fire, if the West is once again slipping toward a flaming autumn.

The Scorch: Sat, August 3, 2024

Jumping from 5% containment to 32% containment is great news for the evening, but still 9,668 acres have burned, and I would not be surprised if the Alexander Fire reaches 10,000 acres by morning.

My wife and I have hiked many of the trails that are now charred, and we are sad to lose the beauty that drew us back to a life along the foothills of the Colorado Front Range. The saddest part is the closure of Highway 34, and the loss of income for the businesses along the highway, like the Colorado Cherry Company, a fourth-generation owned and operated business in the Rockies, and the Dam Store, family owned since 1969, and a favorite of mine since I was kid, because at ten years old I could say without getting in trouble as we passed by, "Hey, there's that dam store we should stop at." Just a year after taking three years of fiscal hits resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, both of my favorite mountain shops are dead-in-the-water, because the only access customers from Larimer County have to reach either location is closed due to the the Stone Canyon and Alexander Mountain fires.

It is said the only constant in life is change. Many times in my life I have wished that wasn't true.

Headway: Sunday, August 4, 2024

The fires abated this morning, outmatched for the first-day-in-six by the amazing folks who accept the challenge of going head on, toe-to-toe with a wildfire—with no thought they will lose. The scorch on the Earth gained little today, while 327 heroes brought the Alexander Mountain Firer to 52% containment. As a general rule, when a fire is brought to 50% containment the fire teams have everything under control and the end is nigh.

Walking to the natural area today, the sky was more clear, the air wafted with diminished odor, and the world in the FoCo foothills felt much more comfortable.

The Last Leg: Monday, August 5, 2024

I busted out in a flood of tears this morning when I pedaled my bicycle up over the ridge that borders my neighborhood and saw Longs Peak, Mount Meeker, and Mount Lady Washington burnished in golden sunlight. Seeing the sky void of the familiar fan of fire smoke, I knew all the beautiful hiking and biking trails I thought might be burned to oblivion would remain. Some of the familiar faces I pass on the Poudre River bike trail every morning on my way to work were also streaked with happy tears.

There is a reason so many of us live in Colorado, play in Colorado, and thrive in Colorado—and in my little patch of Planet Earth some amazing people made sure all of that would be saved. Tonight, the Alexander Mountain Fires smolders at 74% containment. The burned area remains at the 9,668 acres recorded this past Saturday.

The local newspaper reported 929 homes in the vicinity of the fire are still under mandatory evacuation, and another 245 remain under voluntary evacuation. The fire is not out, but it will be. The 327 firefighters who battled the flames day and night to save livestock, pets, wildlife, homes, and outbuildings have, as always, gone far and above the call of heroic duty and have given their all by putting their lives in danger—have taken the bull by the horns and tamed it. They call them "hotshots," elite crews armed with axes, shovels, and hoses, who carved firebreaks through  burning trees, doused flames and embers, and beat back the relentless inferno.\

Addendum—Over and Done

The Alexander Mountain Fire in Larimer County, Colorado was declared out—100% contained—August 17, 2024, two weeks after it was first reported on July 29, 2024. The fire burned over 9,600 acres and was human-caused. 

His Best Friend

By Mike McLaren

He thinks of things, I think. It’s hard to say what goes on in the mind of a seventeen-year-old Chihuahua who is blind, deaf, and has no teeth. Bluto suffered a stroke a while back, on a Thanksgiving afternoon. My wife and I, and our daughter and son-in-law, walked into the house after a three-hour bike ride and watched our little guy fall off the couch that, at one time in his life, he could easily vault onto and leap from to get a treat. But he could barely stand, and his head hung to his left. At first we thought he’d gotten hurt in the fall, but watching him turn circles to his left as he stumbled across the backyard, we realized he’d suffered a stroke. My wife had done the research.

To our surprise, our little guy seemed to have recovered from the stroke by the New Year, but it was clear he was not like to ever regain anything close close to his his previous spryness.

These days I have to help him outside to pee—at three o’clock in the morning, then at 3:45, and again at 4:30. He usually makes his way back inside the house by circling toward the back door, some days making the leap from the patio, up over two steps, and into the mudroom. I don’t know how he does it blind, because on occasional days he misses and slams his haunches into the metal threshold.

Sometimes I intercept him before he leaps toward an unseen destination, just to ensure he doesn’t get hurt. On most days, though, I hold my breath and let him make his own way into the house, thinking the challenge is good for maintaining his cognition. But I don’t know how the mind of a dog processes the world. One of these days he may get hurt because I put too much faith in they way I think nature can take care of herself and her creatures.

These past sixteen years, my little “mighty-mite” has done so many things that have made me question whether humans are smarter than other animals on the planet. I have no idea what kinds of knowledge, ideas, and emotions run through the gray matter of a five-pound canine—though I know he loves me, and he knows I love him, because he runs to dad when he gets shook, or when his sister-of-another-mother beats him up. I also know he likes to be devious. Several times in his life he has stopped, cocked an eye toward me to make sure I wasn’t looking when he tried something sneaky, like pull a pound of cheddar from the loaded grocery bag on the floor. Poor little guy had no idea dad had such great peripheral vision I could snatch him up just as he pulled the cheese from the bag. He got away with it once, scarfed down a whole pound of cheese before I knew what was happening and before I could stop him. The delirium in his eyes for the next two days… I thought it might cure him of the habit to rifle a loaded grocery bag for a full brick of cheese. But no. He tried several other times, when I had too many bags and  needed to set a few down to get the others onto the counter; I kept my eyes wide open on my way to and from the kitchen, always getting back to the bags in the nick of time to stop him from devouring another brick of cheese.

He always seemed so disappointed to be thwarted in making off with the goods. So sometimes, just to give him a little fun, I would play a play trick on him. I would leave a grocery bag on the floor with nothing in it but a one-pound brick of cheddar. The gleam in his eyes was fun to see as he nose-dived into the bag. He did not know that, by the time he crawled to the bottom of the bag and made his way out with the corner of a pound of cheese in his teeth, I was there to snatch him up as he backed into the open. We’d wrestle for a moment, that five-pound Chihuahua and me, until I could wrench the cheese from his maw.

We no longer play that game. It’s heartbreaking to watch him try to lock naked gums in a tiny mouth onto a quarter-inch-thick brick of English cheddar. I don’t think he would stop trying if I didn’t snatch him up.

Since his stroke, he’s lost weight. His ribs are visible, and his midsection is nearly invisible. But he is familiar to me, his face still looks like my boy, and there are many times when his fear and anxiety taper off and he sniffs the air trying to find me for some good ear scritches and neck rubs. There are days, though, when I wonder if the petting I give him feels uncomfortable. I’ll start scratching his back or his haunches, and he’ll lurch spastically to get away.

But then sixty seconds later he’s nuzzling my calf just to make sure it’s still me, so he can follow me around the house, the yard, the garage… .

I rescued this little fella sixteen years ago, at a time when another Chihuahua who lived with me was dying. I had emptied my music studio of all furniture to help her not get lost in a maze. It was hard enough for her not to get trapped in a corner of the room. I kept the door closed to muffle the sounds of her screaming. I was adamant that I would never put down any animal I rescued, but a guitar student of mine gave me sage advice: “the best friend is the one who can make the decision they never wanted to make.”

I swore to myself I would never “kill” a dog I rescued. But seasons change. To this day I regret making Tiva suffer my self-righteousness for so long. As she lay in my arms at the vet, and as the needle pricked into her, I will never forget the return of her little smile, and the sudden clear look that came in her cataract blinded eyes that said, “thanks, dad.”

I do not want to make the same mistake with Bluto. But for the current  moments he pees (too much and can’t hold it), poops, barks incessantly when he senses someone in the kitchen, and tucks hard into my or my wife’s chest when we pick him up and give him scritches in his armpits.

I’ve seen both sides now of  “should I pull the plug, or should I not.”

I think of Tiva and the disservice I did to her. At this very moment I see the joy in Bluto’s posture when he flops onto a sunspot in the house and hunkers down for a long, hot nap. I see his voraciousness when I bust up a treat onto his dish, and the way he attacks his breakfasts and his dinners. But that’s all he does. He lays in the sun until he becomes delirious and can barely walk when I wake him—and he eats. The rest of every day he whines as circles the expansive backyard or the small space of the living room—until he passes out right where he’s at.

This time, when the end has come, I will not yield to my own predilection. My wife and have decided we will pay close attention to what our little boy tells us. My boy will tell me when it’s time to “pull the plug.” I just need to be smart enough to listen, and to be willing to obey.

Addendum

August 6, 2024, my boy barked up a storm at 4:38 in the morning, and when I got downstairs to pick him up he plunged his head into my arms and chest and would not let me put him down. He told his dad what I needed to know. Bluto passed over the Rainbow Bridge, August 8, 2024. The vet who came to the house assured my wife and I that we had waited until the right time—waited until my boy told us he was ready.

I hope someone will do that for me when it’s time.