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| The rising smoke plume; from the Christian Science Monitor |
Perhaps you have heard of the wildfire currently burning in the Gila – likely not. It is amazing to me that this fire is not receiving the national press that AZ’s Wallow fire received, or any fire in CA for that matter. The Wallow fire last spring was about 30 miles (as the raven flies) from my cabin. The Whitewater Baldy fire is about five miles away as of this morning. Just on the other side of the mountain (the one you see in my header, the view from my living room). Very, very close. It is now the largest fire in recorded NM history, over 170,000 acres. It is growing fast, with ZERO containment. Unlike last year’s fire in northern NM, there are no nuclear reactors nearby, no tourist hotspots, no highly visited national or state parks, not many houses, not many people for that matter; apparently not much of what usually concerns the general American public.
There is however, tremendous value here. Beyond price. The region containing the Gila (NM), Apache/Sitgreaves (AZ), and Coronado (AZ) National Forests (and the Gila (NM) and Blue Range (AZ) Wilderness Areas within them) are some of the most biologically diverse forests in the United States. The Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts meet here, combining with a strong influence from Mexico’s Sierra Madre. The terrain is rugged, shaped by an eons long wrestling match between tectonic activity and the Gila River. Elevational changes can be extreme; one can go from desert scrub and grassland at 3000’ to mature Ponderosa forests over 10,000’ in just a few miles. Like a giant, biological Venn diagram, everything meets here, the floral and faunal melting pot of North American. This region hosts the greatest diversity of many insects, birds and plants in North America. Very few people (even the locals) know this.
The Apaches lived in the region for centuries, then about 100 years ago, settlers moved in and began mining. They continued on with ranching. Compared to other parts of AZ and NM, this area is the most recently ‘settled.’ A youngster compared to the rest of the west, and certainly an infant compared to the thick human history of northern NM. Even in affluent times, it is hard to made a living here and the human population has never been large. Numbers have dwindled over the past 25 years and Catron County is now one of the least populated in the nation.
The community here is composed of treeroot tough ranching families, hardy retirees who long for isolation and beauty, and environmentally oriented individuals who bask in what can only be described as the stunning glory of desert riparian zones. Add a dose of ecotourists and you have a feel for the human mix. Often the basic philosophies of these groups clash. The mental shaking of fists and occasional dark glances are taken in stride (and with genuine humor) because there is space here – generous room for every single person to live as he or she chooses. The cattle and elk may glare at each other over the barbed wire fence (and then the elk bounce over), the wolves (yes! wolves, in the Blue Range) and coyotes may harass the livestock (but truly, less than Fido and Spot), but not too much changes over the years. Everyone manages to scrape by because really, that’s all you can do. Nature has the upper hand here.
Living in the West, one becomes inured to the vagaries of the elements. Much mental and emotional activity is dedicated to the timing and distribution of precipitation. There is the eternal prayer for rain, which rarely comes, and sporadically even then.
Occasionally, there are floods. The Corps of Engineers has just about given up on many of the populated watersheds and told residents that the Corps will no longer ‘manage’ streambeds. Flood waters do what they will – human concerns or no. No dam, channel or diversion will ever change that. Most people don’t see it this way, but floods are actually cleansing and positive. Biological recovery is lively and diverse.
Often there are droughts. Often. Of course we have the seasonal dry, but longterm drought happens more and more regularly. Everything just slows. The grasshoppers walk, trees shrink inward, grasses rustle more quietly. Last year was a drought year. Such times are difficult for humans (we like to be well hydrated and water fat), but the natives do fine in the end. This is their land after all, and they know the language of the climate far better than we ever will. As soon as moisture arrives, recovery is instant.
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| A view of the fire from NASA |
In the face of fire, the situation changes. Everyone, every thing is brought to its metaphorical knees in the face of a wildfire. When scrublands, pinyon/juniper and dry ponderosa forests burn there is nothing left. NO thing left. When these forests burn, they will not recover within our lifetimes. Recovery depends on rainfall, and there just isn’t much, never enough, nor at the right time.
I’m here in IL and mourning those mountains and hills. I love that country. I can see there; the sky is high elevation blue -and clear- like nothing else, the clouds sharp against that sky. I can breathe and breathe and breathe. Every six weeks, mountain peak by mountain peak, I mark my 250 mile commute from Albuquerque to the Gila. Four hours of open, clean, beautiful desert, the rest of my life dropping away to blissful nothing.
Now, I sit here in Illinois, very sad. Certainly sad for my cabin and for my beloved Ghost Dog buried there. But more so for the javalina that ate all my pumpkins just as they were ripe; the herd of deer that browse my apple trees then pop over the fence; the ravens that complete a flyover every morning with the whhoom, whhoom, whhoom of their wings; the majestic flock of turkey vultures that shrug into their roosting sycamore every evening; the multiplicity of hummingbirds with all their commentary; the zillions of grasshoppers that buzz and clatter through the weeds; the lizards winking and slipping through my fingers; the scorpions every March like clockwork, the ants, the jumping spiders, the fungus beetles (so blue!), and many others. So many.
I think of and ache for the water borne with nowhere and no way to go. Silver bright minnows, Agosia – tougher than dirt, their gills choked with grey powder ash turned to sludge in the water; toads like handfuls of pebbles in my palm; Belostomatid gentlemen, their backs adorned with the pearls of their offspring; bubbles of Nostoc algae nodding between stones; notonectids that won’t bite me anymore and all those waterscorpians with raptorial arms always praying for the death to come. It is coming.
When the fires come there is nothing anyone can do. It will come and it will be gone. There will be nothing left but dust and ash. We will not see green again for decades. It will never be close to what it was before.