A huge wildfire is threatening to engulf the town where I was raised. Hailey, Idaho in the high desert mountains near the famous SunValley ski resort has a huge fire rushing towards it. Only a hop skip and it would be over the Big Wood River that runs through town. At this time in August, the river must be fairly low. May is when the mountains are a pretty new green but they quickly turn brown from lack of rain. In August, those hills are covered in hot sun-warmed rocks, dry sagebrush, and smatterings of tough, dry, needled trees. This fire covers 140-some miles of land with winds blowing over the past few days as night falls at about 30-miles-per-hour. Residents of Hailey who live West of River Road, which parallels Main street just three blocks over have been mandated to evacuate. Main street is a portion of highway 75. In some places, the fire is just one mile from the highway.
The home I grew up in is across the valley to the east. It has been a relief to me knowing that the fire is not on Red Devil Mountain behind my childhood home. If the fire were to jump the river and the highway, it would be in the heart of town and could spread very quickly. There are over 600 firefighters working very hard to prevent that from happening. There have been three DC-10 aircraft bombers dropping fire repellent along with helicopters doing the same. Still, there are photos of tall fire tornadoes skipping around the mountain slopes. I have been very bothered by this dangerous action and the feeling of helplessness it evokes.
http://news.yahoo.com/aircraft-used-battle-idaho-fire-smoke-clears-231000602.html
But my reaction is more complicated. Only one other time in my lifetime has there been fire in the hills near my town. This was in August of 1994, the same time of year under the same conditions. My parents lived in the house and I received their interested and excited reports. My father was a small business owner who had only just retired two years before. I had visited in July and thought my father looked ill. He was naturally a thin man who looked even more thin and I observed him barely eating, seeming to struggle to even finish a bowl of soup. On August 23rd, I received the horrible phone call from my mom telling me that my dad had committed suicide. He was a man who valued duty to one's community. He had driven up into a canyon with the family car and carefully prepared the area around with a fire extinguisher. He then used the exhaust from the running vehicle to bring him the permanent sleep he had wished. He didn't want his actions to cause another fire for the community to have to manage.
Now, as I hear the reports and see the photos of the rapidly advancing fire threatening my home town and I feel this helplessness, it has another layer, the deeper layer of the helplessness I felt at the loss of my father. This wildfire of August 2013 is stirring up the wounds of August 1994.
