The West is on Fire

Climate Change and Wildfires

Wildfire smoke makes for beautiful sunsets

(From September 2020)

Even though the wildfires are not relatively close to us, the smoke is thick. Colorado to the north and Santa fe to the south are burning. California has made national news with it's record fires. Here, the mountains are obscured. The sky is creamy white, dusty blue and muted gray. The air smells of a bonfire or the scent of winter when woodstoves are fired up and their chimney pipes emit swirls of piñon and juniper combustion.The winds pick up in the afternoon and carry the fumes toward us. Our lungs burn as we work around the homestead shoveling gravel and digging trenches.

Wildfires are sad. We drove through the remnants of one last week. I always feel a sense of grief for the loss of beauty, the loss of oxygen production, the loss of arbor life. But I know it is part of the natural cycle.

Often when we think of fire, we think of what we might lose--our homes, the lives of brave smokejumpers, public lands we enjoy hiking …