There were always wildfires during the summer. I remember every other year it seemed the grassy Open Space hill North of my childhood home would lite on fire. We would sit at the top of the hill and watch it inch toward us until the dense gray brown smoke would change directions causing us to run back home. I always felt safe though, between the road and wildfire Hummer trucks (as 10 year old this is all I could think about). We knew it would only last a couple hours, the smoke would dissipate and we could venture out on the burn scar with water guns to extinguish the embers. It was all a game, something fun that would happen every once in a while.

Now it’s different. Living in Idaho in the summer has been different, seeing pictures from my brother not so far away from our old Golden house says it’s different. The burning West feels new to me, days bathed in dense smoke, a pink sun on the horizon and an orange moon. This is not the way it should be, rather this is not what I want it to be. I want to be able to see the milky way in August or just feel the warm cool mixture at golden hour, to not have choking haze when hiking. It feels wrong that late summer should be this way, but at this point it is the new normal.

Nip n’ Tuck Road Stanley ID, 2021. Canon 7D Mark II, Canon 70-200mm F2.8 L USM.

Smoke in the West is a result of old growth and to believe that it isn’t normal to have big fires would show and ignorance of the anthropocene. Life of the forest, bugs, and even apex predators depend on fire, the familiar cycle of death to bring new life. Putting out fire is an example of our human drive to conquer, to eradicate things that threaten us without regard to its interconnectedness in the environment. It reminds me of the process of wilderness something to be conquered to protect us from the “wild”. And like wilderness our relationship with fire must change.

This topic to impressively complex and I will leave my Gary Snyder environmental thoughts there and clarify my position a little. I don’t believe we should let things burn uncontrolled, especially with our expansion into fire prone areas. Along with fire prevention like following fire restrictions, mitigation, controlled burns we need to respect fire and understand that fire is as inevitable. Fire should be treated like being tornado alley or in a floodplain, it will happen at some point. It’s a context you must live with.

Being the person I am, I feel my job is to observe and I think that wildfire smoke is not bad in all contexts. Smoke can obscure detail and distance it physically changing our perception of our environment. It makes our space feel small and allows us to think more abstractly. In a way it helps us see the bigger picture more clearly. Your view isn’t obscured by details like trees and changes in texture your view is just the silhouette, elevation, shape, and distance. I also find that the smoke brings a comfortably warm and soft light a juxtaposition to the context that created the smoke. Finally, smoke reminds us of our interconnectedness. I have never been to Northern California yet I know I have breathed its particles thousands of miles away.

I’m saddened by the change of smokey summers but I welcome all the context it brings.