Drift Smoke: Loss and Renewal in a Land of Fire

6. Drift Smoke

In country not seen in the daylight. —Watch Out Situation Number 2 You are dust, and to dust you shall return. —Genesis 3:19 Light drizzle fell as I began down the trail, between granite crosses and thick Gambel oak. Four years after my first visit to Storm King Mountain I had returned, only to be driven from its slopes by the dark underbelly of a thunderstorm. A camera tripod protruded from the top of my backpack. Although death by lightning—upon the ashes of a burn—is about as good a way as any for a firefighter to exit terra firma, I didn’t want to tempt fate. Plus, I had yet to visit the Storm King Monument in Glenwood Springs. Just the day before I was in Missoula. Traveling south, I noticed old fire scars all along the freeway between Montana and Utah. By early evening I was shacked up in a sweltering motel room in Springville, Utah, at the base of the Wasatch Range. In the pink glow of a sun setting behind towering cumulus, I could see the gray skeletons of trees from an old fire above town— confirmation that death still lurks in countless nooks and cran- [ 121] 6 | d ri ft s mo ke nies of the West. The next afternoon I’d arrive where death was realized on July 6, 1994. Just a few miles southwest of Storm King, and not far off Interstate 70, I passed Battlement Mesa, site of the 1976 Battlement Creek fire, where three firefighters died. While circumstances at Battlement Creek differed from South Canyon, that deaths occurred in such close proximity is at the very least peculiar . Maybe it says something about fires in this area or about the people who fight fires in this area; maybe it says something about both. I’m not sure. In 1994, when I first saw South Canyon, very little marked the way to the place where fourteen men and women died. A gravel cul-de-sac beneath a southerly ridge off Storm King Mountain was as close as you could get to the fire area in a vehicle, with a cross-country trek on foot from there. Mainly, I orienteered by fresh memories of newscasts showing the smoking main ridge, dotted by yellow tarps under which lay bodies. Today there is a paved parking area, an outhouse, interpretive signs with pictures of the fourteen deceased, a white plastic vase holding walking staffs that hikers can borrow, a metal registration box, and a wellmarked , water-barred trail. Along the path are more interpretive signs, culminating in an overlook from which you can see most of the points where the critical events of 1994 occurred. From there to the crosses the trail has been left primitive, marked only by rock cairns. As one sign says, this is to pay “tribute to the firefighters who lost their lives,” because the ground on which d ri ft s mo ke [ 122] firefighters work is rugged. I like that, even if the path has become well worn by its many pilgrims. I wondered if there was too much explanation along the trail, too many signs helping visitors process and make sense of what may never be fully sensible. But this is a community’s effort (really two communities’ efforts: Glenwood Springs and the wildland fire community) to make meaning, to grieve, and to pay tribute. The signs set the human tragedy in the context of fire ecology, which is an admirable juxtaposition. In the end, I’m not sure if excessive explanation is any more blameworthy than nine riderless horses in a central Oregon parade, in tribute to firefighters who no longer ride horses. And maybe the “excesses” will help ensure that the fatalities are remembered. Weather and drought conditions probably had more to do with the fire behavior on July 6, 1994, than did fuel buildup and the historic loss of fire on the west slope of the Rockies. Human fallibility on the ground probably had as much to do with the loss of life as did fallible fire policy that risked people’s necks for homes built amidst flammable fuels. Would Canyon Creek Estates , to the west of the South Canyon fire, or Glenwood Springs, to the east, have lost even one home had not a single firefighter set foot on the fire’s perimeter...