{"id":4665,"date":"2012-10-27T21:42:09","date_gmt":"2012-10-28T03:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4665"},"modified":"2012-10-27T22:15:31","modified_gmt":"2012-10-28T04:15:31","slug":"a-dream-a-dog-and-a-forest-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4665","title":{"rendered":"A Dream, a Dog, and a Forest Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A forest fire burning above Hardscrabble Creek.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last Monday, the 22nd<\/strong>, I came home from a week-long trip. On Tuesday, I was temporarily homeless, a condition that persisted until Friday.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s weather was warm and windy, with the highest gust in the area clocked at 79 mph. Somehow \u2014 I still have not heard the definitive story \u2014 a tree hit a power line or a power line hit a tree . . . or something \u2014 and a raging forest fire began.<\/p>\n

Within an hour, fourteen houses plus barns, sheds, etc., near mine had been erased. Eventually that night the fire burned 2,100 acres (850 ha).<\/p>\n

M. and I were 45 minutes’ drive away when we saw the smoke. I brandished my county-issued volunteer firefighter ID card, and we passed through four road blocks.<\/p>\n

When we arrived home, she quickly left again with the dogs, her favorite faux leather jacket, her laptop computer, a sack of dog food, a bag of apples, a bottle of wine, and the clothes on her back.<\/p>\n

She was not sure where she was going, since the road to town was closed to “civilian” traffic.<\/p>\n

I left home dressed in my wildland-fire gear, with my laptop too, and also my bunker gear<\/a> in case I had to face a structure fire. As it happened, it was too late to save any houses \u2014 I ended up working until about 9 p.m. chasing spot fires that kept multiplying in the trees along the dry stream bed of Hardscrabble Creek.<\/p>\n

I talk about the experience at Southern Rockies Nature Blog<\/em> here<\/a>, here,<\/a> and here.<\/a><\/p>\n

But there is a part that I left out in that blog.<\/p>\n

On the night of the 19th<\/strong>, I believe it was, sleeping my friend’s slightly haunted house*<\/strong> in a small North Dakota prairie town, I had a dream.\u00a0 In the dream, M. and I were at a house in the woods, although it was not our house and not our woods.<\/p>\n

The house had a long gravel driveway (as does ours), and M. was setting up a card table beside it in order to eat a meal out in the sunshine (as we sometimes do). Standing on the steps, I looked down the driveway past her and saw a large tawny animal.<\/p>\n

“Wow, that’s a big coyote,” I thought. Then I realized that it was a sort of bleached-out-looking tiger. I wanted her to come to the house right away.<\/p>\n

In the morning, I tried to think about associations with tigers. True, we had recently watched the “Siberian Tiger Quest<\/a>” episode of Nature.<\/em> (It is excellent.) Otherwise, the only thing that came to mind was William Blake’s poem<\/a> that starts,<\/p>\n

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
\nIn the forests of the night,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Burning. Forests.<\/p>\n

I told M. about my dream during the time when we were staying at a motel 15 miles away, me commuting to the fire house, and she spoke of something that struck her oddly.<\/p>\n

At a house about 250 yard<\/strong>s away lives a chocolate Lab named Boone. We hear him bark now and then. But on Monday night he bayed all night long, so persistently that M. shut the bedroom window, turned on a fan, and muttered about his stupid owners who would not bring him indoors.\u00a0 If I ever hear him bay through the night again, I am going to be very nervous.<\/p>\n

I do think that events cast their shadows before them, but it is so hard sometimes to know what the shadows signify.<\/p>\n

*<\/strong> I will discuss the “haunted” part soon. It was a post that I had meant to write this week.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Monday, the 22nd, I came home from a week-long trip. On Tuesday, I was temporarily homeless, a condition that persisted until Friday. Tuesday’s weather was warm and windy, with the highest gust in the area clocked at 79 mph. Somehow \u2014 I still have not heard the definitive story \u2014 a tree hit a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-4665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dreams"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1df","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":591,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=591","url_meta":{"origin":4665,"position":0},"title":"A forest fire in JanuaryThe\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A forest fire in JanuaryThe same winds that have pushed the grass fires in Oklahoma and Texas for the past couple of weeks have been blowing in southern Colorado too.Now a forest fire is burning west of Aguilar, just one county south of us. It is called the Mauricio Canyon\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":147,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=147","url_meta":{"origin":4665,"position":1},"title":"‘Red Flag Warning’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"For the last month, Forest Service crews have been cutting fire line and otherwise preparing to set a prescribed burn quite near my home. The first burn in what was supposed to be a series of them to reduce the wildfire risk and improve elk winter habitat was set four\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4010,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4010","url_meta":{"origin":4665,"position":2},"title":"From Snow into Fire","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone has posted their \"Happy Equinox\" messages. Oh well. I live in a house that was placed by the Old Ones to line up with the equinoctial sunsets, instead. You can see how tonight the sun seemed to fit into a particular notch in the ridge to the west.\u00a0 They\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SpringEquinox2012.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SpringEquinox2012.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SpringEquinox2012.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12935,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12935","url_meta":{"origin":4665,"position":3},"title":"How Smokey Bear Would Celebrate the Summer Solstice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Flames leapt into the June sky, illuminating the attentive faces of the surroundng watchers, while waves of heat rolled off the fire. Around us was darkness, mountains, and forest. I was thirsty, so I walked over the cooler to get some water. On the way back, my boot felt loose,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bears\"","block_context":{"text":"bears","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=bears"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/6-11-2022-fire-sm-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2606,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2606","url_meta":{"origin":4665,"position":4},"title":"Why I Have Not Been Blogging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything in my normal life stopped last Friday, and it is just starting to get back to normal. A 560-acre forest fire is not like all the tornadoes down South\u2014for one thing, you can fight a forest fire to some extent\u2014but it is a big disruption when it is close\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10864,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10864","url_meta":{"origin":4665,"position":5},"title":"A Wreath for Hardscrabble Creek","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 13, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this month I wrote about tossing offerings into the Cache la Pourdre River in northern Colorado, and it hit me that I had not done anything about a certain creek in the southern part of the state \u2014 a creek that has been hit hard with three summers of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4665"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4679,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4665\/revisions\/4679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}