Our relationship with fire seems fundamental. In fact, it appears in origin stories, myths, and legends for as far back as recorded history. Even before history was recorded — because let’s be honest, history was still happening — there is ample evidence of fire as well. It seems that over generations of living with this, this… well, what is fire? How do you actually talk about it? You cannot hold it, store it, touch it, but it can shape your existence, your surroundings, your life. Fire sounds more like a riddle than an object; more like an emotion than a tangible thing.
So let’s explore the riddle of fire and our relationship with it.
View of the Plumtaw Fire scar in 2023 near Pagosa Springs, courtesy of Christi Bode Skeie
Before television screens and even books, the dance of a flame was one of the best forms of entertainment a human could ask for, preceded only by the stars. Fire cooked food for us and transformed objects. It kept us warm and its smoke cleansed our spirits.
We have this idea that we discovered it or at least harnessed it, but our relationship with fire, as deep-rooted as it is, pales in comparison to fire’s relationship with the rest of our planet. As long as there’s been oxygen to fuel it, there’s been fire on planet earth.
Fire is the embodiment of change. Quite literally, it is the change in chemical structure, the release of energy. But even on a larger scale, it represents change — the change in forest structure, the regeneration of trees and biodiversity, the cycling of nutrients. It changes things. The only reason we see it as destructive and malevolent is because we’ve tried to prevent its most fundamental quality — change. There are other earthly things that change as well. The bacterial ballet of decomposition — aided in no small part by insects and fungi — is perhaps even more impressive than fire. The whole surface of the earth is a compost bin and makes me question why we even thought to create a name for this age old simple process of things breaking apart and becoming useful again.
A plume of smoke rises from the West Fork Fire in 2013
And maybe that’s what sums up our disconnect with fire. Instead of flowing with fire’s role of breaking things up and making them useful again, we put up something we want to remain unbroken smack dab in the middle of fire’s stomping ground.
Here’s an analogy: In a faraway, fantastical land, an enormous flood rages through a river valley every 100 years, uprooting trees, sweeping away rocks, and pulling down entire hillsides. There are calmer periods between these floods, enough time to forget, apparently, but not enough time to be forgiven for forgetting. Human beings arrive and see only the moment of calmness, of peace, and build their town right next to the river. The flood doesn’t affect those first folks, but their kids are washed away like crisp leaves. Then, they just rebuild the town in the same place. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s happening in almost every major watershed in the world. Why? Why do we knowingly put ourselves in semi-permanent structures in a place that cannot accommodate them? Fire is no different. This is a human dilemma.
And yet, our response to this dilemma has diverged even further. The lessons we have chosen to learn are not how we can live and adapt to nature’s reality, but rather how we can engineer our surroundings so that we don’t have to adapt. Which leaves us in an untenable predicament: we’ve set up our infrastructure and communities to flourish without fire, but fire will happen and needs to so that everything else can flourish. How can we reconcile the gap? How can we flourish with fire?
I’m not calling for the mass exodus of communities that live in floodplains and fire-prone forests. But we have to do something, right? Where’s that damn silver bullet when you need it?!
Maybe that something starts with awareness. And maybe that grows into understanding, then a seed of thoughtfulness, and eventually a full blown tree of caring. We have lived with fire forever, maybe we should lean on that collective past as we try to reconcile our current relationship with it.
Prescribed fire moves through Animas City Mountain in 2023, courtesy of David Lynch
Is fire good? Or bad? Well, both. It all depends on the conditions and how we think of it. There is no easy answer to the riddle. We use fire to cook food and warm our houses. It helps forests regenerate. Fire can also burn your house down. Through it all, though, fire has no agenda. Similarly, the word wildfire may bring up an emotional reaction from many of us living in the West, but just as with regular old fire, wildfire can be good or bad or both. We often hear the bad stories about wildfire, where it leaves utter destruction in its wake. That does happen. Rarely do we hear good stories — yet they do exist — where fire plays the role of change agent and regenerator. Accomplishing that may take our intervention considering it took our intervention to get to where we are. A good example is the story of the Plumtaw Fire near Pagosa Springs in 2022. In the end, by holding two truths simultaneously — the benefits and risks of fire — we can appreciate and respect fire in our lives.
