By Bonnie Boyle Durango Area Resident
DURANGO, Colo. — Last Monday — the day before my house was put on pre-evacuation notice, before I loaded my dogs into the car and drove up the narrow road out of the canyon where I live — now seems so very routine. My next-door neighbor and I took our ritual 9:30 drive that evening to look at the Missionary Ridge fire that had already burned more than 60,000 acres since it started June 9 about three miles north of here. The drive would tell us whether we should sleep in our clothes and put the computers in the cars.
"What did we do before the fire?" Deeni asked.
We breathed clean air, I remembered. We weren't afraid to leave the dogs in the house and go away for more than an hour or two. We went on hikes. We listened to birds instead of helicopters and tanker planes. We gave little thought to subtle shifts in the wind. We simply reveled in the great natural beauty surrounding us. We had chosen to live in this mountain town in the southwest corner of Colorado partly because we considered it safe. We told our friends and relatives back east to come to Durango if terrorism struck the East Coast again.
A sort of torpor has settled over this town. We are all just tired. Too tired to worry. Those who've been evacuated are tired of sleeping in a high school gym, tired of wanting to go home, tired of not knowing whether they still have a home to go to. Everyone else is tired of hauling stuff to storage, tired of breathing smoke. We all have a smoker's cough. We all have a creeping feeling of helplessness in the face of a slow-moving but inexorable monster — ranging where it chooses, in search of fuel.
That fuel is living forest. The Forest Service spokesman told us that a board you buy at the lumber yard contains about 12 percent moisture; today, he says, because of the drought, a live tree in Durango has a moisture content of only 5 percent. And I can't help wondering about the moisture content of the window frames, the rocking chair, the sleigh bed and salad bowl in my home.
Setting priorities
Many of us have re-examined our lives based on how much we care about our possessions-and which ones we care about. Some have had to evacuate in a few minutes without the luxury of such soul searching. There's a saying here about the four P's — people, pets, papers, photos — things you should get out first. Lucky ones have been able to deal with the rest of the alphabet. But it comes down to longer names for the same things for myself — Peaches and Blue (my two Chesapeake Bay retrievers), yearbooks, the insurance policy on the house, scrapbooks and a few pieces of meaningful memorabilia. I couldn't bear the idea of my grandmother's oak mantel clock turning to ashes.
The rest is just stuff. I realized that when I was talking to a couple who live nearby. He'd been worrying about what he'd do if she had taken their only car to town and an evacuation order came. "I'll put the cat carriers in the wheelbarrow and head out toward the highway," he suggested. When I offered to lend them one of my cars, they asked if I was worried about it. I thought for a moment. "It's just a car," I said.
That is one of the things about this fire. It distills your values for you to see — right there.
In my neighborhood, along a one-mile-long country road, we began to prepare for the worst soon after fire broke out. We set up a phone tree, drew up lists of everyone's pets, emergency contact numbers. It made sense to be prepared. Because we live at the end of a narrow canyon, we knew we might have to drive a mile toward the fire to evacuate.
We all watched curiously as "our" fire rose and fell in the hierarchy of Western fires on the national news media. Size matters. First the Hayman fire near Denver was bigger. Then Hayman was briefly thought to be under control, and we were the most important fire in the country. A photo of houses here backlit by our fire was on the front page of the Sunday New York Times. Then a town in Arizona with a funny name was threatened, and we were backpaged. Another day, some Hot Shots found a newborn fawn tucked between tree stumps here, and the cutesy factor got us back into the three major evening newscasts. What we all hope is that the fickleness of the national media is not reflected in the attention we will get from fire authorities.
Tuesday brought change. I had spent most of the afternoon reassuring friends on the East Coast I was fine. The Missionary Ridge fire seemed to be moving away from my house. I sprinkled my commentary with humor. We knew the federal government had taken over firefighting, I explained to friends, when tractor-trailers loaded with portable toilets rolled into town. Ho. It was a relaxed day. I was thinking of hooking the computer back up so I could pay some bills. Ten minutes after I hung up from one of these conversations, I saw the new plume of smoke. It was just over the ridge from my house. The phone started ringing. Breaking news of the new fire appeared on TV. The new fire was my new fire, too close for comfort.
Time to leave
There wasn't an official evacuation order — just the pre-evacuation notice that meant we should be ready to leave — but who's going to stay at the dead end of a canyon waiting for the sirens? Though I had been preparing for this for more than a week, I was suddenly frantic. I scoured the house for important papers I might have overlooked. My once-a-week housekeeper and I went out in the yard and turned on all the sprinklers, and got out a ladder and leaned it up against the house, as instructed in the newspaper, so firefighters could climb up and spray the roof with fire retardant. I looked at this house that has been so good to me, and it finally hit me. I might never see it again. I started to cry.
Back inside, I phoned neighbors to see if everyone knew about the new fire, if anyone needed help. They were all fine — and packing up. Gallows humor took over. "What a shame to have the house cleaned today," I thought, "if it's just going to burn tonight." Financial news had replaced the fire on TV. The stock market had tanked. "Great!" I said to no one in particular. "My house is going to be burned to the ground, and my portfolio is going to be worthless!"
At last I loaded Peaches and Blue into the car and drove away, saying "Goodbye" out loud. Other people who live on my road were either already gone or about to go. I started driving south toward town, but traffic was at a standstill, and thick, dark smoke billowed across the road. I decided I might be able to find a place to stay about 15 miles north of my house, near the ski area. I made a U-turn and ended up at a resort condominium complex. "Do you take dogs?" I asked. "I live near the new fire."
They would make an exception. It is the sort of generosity everyone in Durango has shown during this fire season.
We have tent cities set up at the fairgrounds and on the lawn of the high school, housing 1,500 firefighters who have come from all over to help us. Mostly, when people are camping, at night you see lights in the tents, the shadows of campers sitting around talking. Not here.
In the daytime, if we see a firefighter or two walking around, we blow our horns, yell our thank-yous and give a thumbs up. Homemade signs line the main streets — "God bless you, firefighters," "Firefighters Kick Ash" and, in front of the Italian restaurant, "Mille grazie, firefighters."
People at their best
A local psychologist whose patients have been requesting extra sessions since the fires tells me some people have lost faith and their feelings of security. I've only been heartened by the displays of human kindness. At the Red Cross fire headquarters, citizens walk in and ask, "What do you need now?" and then reappear 20 minutes later with cartons of whatever it is. One day they need feminine hygiene supplies (there are women fighting this fire, too) and contact lens solution. Another day it's clean socks and T-shirts. These firefighters have come with just backpacks, and they run out of things.
There are bins at the supermarket with lists of needs. One day, I saw that chewing gum and sewing kits had been added to the list. I headed to the chewing gum aisle and was delighted to see that it had already been emptied. Not a stick of gum in sight. A local hair salon donated a day of haircuts to the firefighters. One family has set up a buffet dinner in the driveway to feed passing firefighters. A neighbor overheard some firefighters talking about what a nice town ours is. Other towns are nice, the firefighter said, "but not until somebody dies on a fire line." (Editor's note: A firefighter was killed Tuesday by a falling tree fighting the Durango-area fire.)
My friend Carole, who usually rehabilitates injured raptors, took in the famous fawn and fed it goat's milk every three hours until more appropriate quarters could be found. The day the fawn moved out, evacuees moved into her guest rooms.
Yes, the fire is a disaster, but this is the American West. Though I have only lived here 12 years, today I feel more connected to this land than ever before. This is a blended community — native Americans, Hispanics, ranchers descended from early settlers and newcomers like myself. This calamity has brought us all together, helping each other and helping those who help us.
As I write, my house is still standing. The firefighters contained this newest fire, and most of my neighbors have been moving back into their homes. But I've decided to take an extra couple of days higher in the mountains to breathe some clean air. That's what I moved here for, clean air.
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