World on Fire

Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire; image from Las Vegas, NM city website

The monsoons came early this year. Big boiling cumulous clouds massed over the Sangre de Cristos; gigantic cauliflowers reaching into the sky. In a matter of minutes, the huge white columns got interspersed with ribbons of black. The air changed, crackling with electric charge. Soon, lightning bolts striated the sky and the rain started to fall, torrentially. The Santa Fe River, dark and desultory an hour before, now gushed down its watershed, churning up earth and vegetation, turning itself yellow. Dry arroyos became rushing cauldrons. A glorious smell—faintly remembered—filled the air: damp earth. The world changed from dry to wet in a matter of moments. Those electronic highway signs that warn you of roadwork and crashes? Those changed, too, flashing “Turn Around. Don’t Drown.” Apparently, every year, at least one foolish motorist thinks he’ll make it across a flooded roadway and doesn’t.

Monsoons usually start in July. Blessedly, they made an early entrance this year, arriving in mid-June. It was a cause for rejoicing. The only thing big enough, powerful enough, to fight the monstrous wildfires that were incinerating New Mexico, were the monsoons.

There are fires all over this state. Big ones. But the one that affected Santa Fe most was Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon—a mashup of two prescribed burns that got out of control in April, bringing stinging rebuke down on the fire service officials who ordered them. This amalgamated monster has consumed almost 350,000 acres, destroyed nearly 1000 structures, and upended a way of life that is hundreds of years old. The two counties where it is burning are 80 percent Hispanic, and many little Spanish villages are gone. President Biden dropped in to view the damage and talk to the governor (creating traffic challenges the same day we were trying to get Cal to urgent care to stitch up his thumb after a kitchen mishap—but that’s another story). All we got in Santa Fe were some smoky days—familiar to those of us who live in the Bay Area. But the misery to the north and east of us is extreme. New Mexico feels like a small state where its human community is concerned. Everybody knows somebody affected. Everybody collects clothes and food and money to send to the victims. Hand lettered signs that read “God Bless Our Firefighters” are blooming like desert poppies after a rain.

Last summer, Cal helped build a straw bale house up near Hermit’s Peak, in Gallinas Canyon. With a sinking heart, he watched accounts of the fire’s devastation. When we heard the flames roared through Gallinas Creek, he assumed the straw bale house was gone. He reached out to Rob, the owner, for news. Amazingly, reported Rob, “The forest is toast. But the house is still standing.” Score one for straw bale construction in a fire.

Yesterday, we drove up to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and into the burn area. We had assumed we wouldn’t get too far. The fire is listed as 93 percent contained right now, and hotspots still burn on its western flank high in the Sangres. We dropped into the Las Vegas Plaza for a shot of western small-town Fourth of July, then continued west to the town of Montezuma. We made a brief stop at the New Mexico campus of the United World College. This brainchild of Armand Hammer seeks to teach cross cultural understanding and environmental sustainability. I had always wanted to see one thing on its campus: the Dwan Light Sanctuary, an intriguing meditation place built with prisms in its ceiling and walls. The prisms catch and play with sunlight throughout the day, casting ever-changing color patterns across the interior spaces. The security guard at the gate told us the college remained closed, first by the pandemic and now by the fires. When I told him of my desire to see the sanctuary, he said, in typical New Mexico fashion, “Oh. OK. Give me your driver’s license. I’ll give you a key.” So I did, and we had a little interlude of respite and contemplation. Upon returning the key, we asked the guard how far up the mountain we could go. “Probably to Gallinas,” he said, “or maybe El Porvenir. They’ll probably stop you there. But be careful. The mountain guardrails all burned away.”

We made our way up state highway 65, past the hot springs, past the old ice plant, past the skating pond, and into the rugged canyon that flanks the Gallinas River. The damage was incredible. But what struck me most was the capriciousness of it. Whole sections of the mountains were charred—swaths of skinny black tree trunks burned to a crisp. But interspersed with the char were green, intact trees. And also, trees that were both: half charred, half green.

How does this happen, all in one place? About the only pattern we could see is that fire burns upward. From bottom to top; low to high; river valley to mountain ridge. It’s obvious where the white-hot infernos got going--steep slopes where the fire started low and incinerated everything in its upward path of destruction.

Once through the mountain pass, we dropped down into the village of Gallinas, a jumble of rustic dwellings and one ancient church. Here in the river valley, things were mostly intact. Same with El Porvenir, just beyond. Not encountering anybody to stop us, we drove on, turning north into the finger canyon where Rob and Barbara’s house reportedly still stood. On the road in, in no particular pattern, lay some homes in burnt, twisted ruins, and others intact.

We found the straw bale house a few minutes later. The surrounding forest, as Rob had said, was toast. But the inexplicable mix of damage was evident here, too. The ground was green, thanks to the recent rains. There were skinny black sticks, but there were also intact trees. The fire had clearly roared right through here, over the newly built house.

Surveying what was left of the canyon, Cal expressed relief. He’d been told what he would find. But I think he needed to see it with his own eyes. He had worked here, building something beautiful with his own hands, collaborating with others who shared a vision. The idea that it had been lost was a blow. The subsequent idea, that it had been saved, was a miracle.

Our whole world is on fire right now, it seems. The air burns with ignorance and fear. Human rights are being torched, the victim of changes in the direction of our political winds. Ideals and principles I have counted on my entire life are going up in flames. And the thing I find hardest about it? There seems to be such an undercurrent of malice and cruelty to the whole thing.

I honestly don’t know what to do about it. But when we find that something we cherish still stands, against the odds? Maybe that deserves our notice. Maybe it’s not luck of the draw; where the sparks fly; or what side of the street you live on. Maybe that’s a miracle. Something to notice and hang onto.