Fires | Camino Bay Books

Thoughts From My Journal – Dixie Fire

Dr. Brestrup — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 20:17:21 +0000

8-7-21: I often write notes to myself when I’m reading, and more often when I’m camping. These used to be called “commonplace books” and have been maintained since antiquity; I’m sorry I’ve not spent more time on mine, both writing in them and rereading, which I rarely do. I don’t understand why I don’t since I often find notes from years ago that may mean more to me now than they did then and in any event, I usually find something of interest. I also frustrate myself since I often make a very brief notation about something I’m reading and when I return to it after a year or two or more can’t remember what the book was or who the author. Today I looked back in one of the notebooks and found something from a couple of years ago when I was camped in Warner Valley in Lassen Volcanic N.P.: “Crossing a stream I saw a large rock with smaller ones embedded within it as if having arrived when it was molten. I had a striking awareness that that rock had a story that told of its origins and movements and arrival in this spot. And so did the tree it leaned against and the shrub across the stream and every blade of grass and busy insect. A world full of stories intersecting here but not ending here. There will, as always, be more change.” I could have added the flowing water and myself observing. There’s nothing terribly profound in this, especially considering this is volcano country with a long history of eruptions and landscape alterations: When was it ever the same for very long? But I remember my imagination erupting in its own way and picturing all the movements, destruction and creation, comings, and goings, that preceded the peaceful scene in which I stood. Momentarily, I had a longitudinal awareness that I don’t commonly access. I was moved by it. Today I’m moved in a different way by more fiery change, this time a massive wildfire that started many miles to the south of the park and has worked its way north. As best I can tell on the fire maps, it may well engulf that Valley, a place I’ve camped many times and hiked many miles, one of my favorite places. If the fire continues north—and what’s to stop it?—it will almost certainly burn through another of my favorites, Butte Lake, where I camped only a few months ago. As I’ve said before, if these fires were just Nature doing what it does according to natural contingencies, I’d be saddened but accept it as the way of the Earth in forest lands. But there’s no avoiding the knowledge that humans set the table for these fires and before many decades pass a large part of California will burn. Natural incendiary conditions have resulted from unnatural human nature as it now presents itself, a nature that lays waste and kills so much for so little.

Thoughts From My Journal – Anticipatory Grief

Dr. Brestrup — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 13:25:21 +0000

8-18-21: For many years one of my favorite places to camp has been Warner Valley, a remote area in the southeast corner of Lassen Volcanic N.P. The Pacific Crest Trail runs through, as does a permanent stream, and I’ve hiked both north and south on the PCT as well as on other trails, mostly ones that connected to areas active with volcanic remnants such as mud pots, steam vents, and Sulphur ponds and others that looped off and back to the PCT. It’s a beautiful area not even badly disturbed by a rustic guest ranch situated on the west end of the Valley. This summer of 2021 is seeing the end of unburned places I’ve spent time in or traveled through in the north and east parts of the state. Warner Valley is now one of those according to a piece I read a couple of days ago and that fire maps, even with lack of detail, confirm. Considering the direction of the fire it would have entered through the east end after burning through 15 miles of forest and occasional houses. When people are allowed back in I’ll want to visit and recall its history and experience the losses directly. From the trajectory of the fire’s movement, I will probably need to repeat the ritual at Butte Lake, which is northeast of Warner and another of my favored places. I have predicted for several years that California would eventually burn almost completely across its forests and mountains, and it’s happening sooner than I expected. Future camping and hiking in unburned areas may need to be approached as I would an elder not expected to live much longer, with deeper than normal appreciation for what has been shared and loved and anticipation that it may not be there next year. When I worked with dying people years ago as a therapist, I considered the experience of anticipatory grief important (when one was fortunate enough to have time left for it), an occasion that allowed a period to honor the past and prepare for a future without the beloved. I can’t know which places will go or when but in the sureness that time will likely take them all eventually, I can’t help thinking (already I do this) that every visit could be my last to an intact locale. Of course, I could die before it but that comes to the same thing.

Photo by Patrick Bösiger on Unsplash

Entangled Life – Part III

Dr. Brestrup — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 13:30:33 +0000

(A few days later) For many years one of my favorite places to camp has been Warner Valley, a remote area in the southeast corner of Lassen Volcanic N.P. The Pacific Crest Trail runs through, as does a permanent stream, and I’ve hiked both north and south on the PCT as well as on other trails, mostly ones that connected to areas active with volcanic remnants such as mud pots, steam vents, and Sulphur ponds and others that looped off and back to the PCT. It’s a beautiful area not even badly disturbed by a rustic guest ranch situated on the west end of the Valley. This summer of 2021 is seeing the end of unburned places I’ve spent time in or traveled through in the north and east parts of the state. Warner Valley is now one of those according to a piece I read a couple days ago and that fire maps, even with lack of detail, confirm. Considering the direction of the fire it would have entered through the east end after burning through 15 miles of forest and occasional houses. When people are allowed back in, I’ll want to visit and recall its history and experience the losses directly. From the trajectory of the fire’s movement, I will probably need to repeat the ritual at Butte Lake, which is northeast of Warner and another of my favored places. I have predicted for several years that California would eventually burn almost completely across its forests and mountains, and it’s happening sooner than I expected. Future camping and hiking in unburned areas may need to be approached as I would an elder not expected to live much longer, with deeper than normal appreciation for what has been shared and loved and anticipation that it may not be there next year. When I worked with dying people years ago as a therapist, I considered the experience of anticipatory grief important (when one was fortunate enough to have time left for it), an occasion that allowed a period to honor the past and prepare for a future without the beloved. I can’t know which places will go and when but in the sureness that time will likely take them all eventually, I can’t help thinking (already I do this) that every visit could be my last to an intact locale. Of course, I could die before it does, but that comes to the same thing.

“The Dixie Fire has made a significant impact on park viewsheds and the visitor experience. However, fire is an integral part of the ecosystems in this resilient, volcanic landscape. A forest leveled by Lassen Peak eruptions more than 100 years ago and another affected by the 2012 Reading Fire tell the story of nature’s continuous cycle of regeneration and renewal.” ~ Lassen Volcanic National Park https://www.nps.gov/lavo/planyourvisit/upload/2021-LAVO-Guide-Post-Fire-1Oct2021.pdf

After the Fire – Continued

Dr. Brestrup — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:00:03 +0000

It was cool days and cold nights when we arrived two days ago, but that has been replaced with hot days and cool nights. So, Twig and I used the morning to take an ambling walk around what is called Cave Loop, probably three miles or so. Most of the trails will be closed for another couple of weeks so we walk along roadways that aren’t heavily driven. I was perplexed at the continued closures, but a Ranger made sense of it—vegetative cover is slowly returning and since no one sticks slavishly to a trail they keep them closed to protect young grasses, forbs, and shrubs slowly making their return (against the odds, I imagine, since it’s so dry); wandering hikers do more damage than we realize in normal conditions, and this is a delicate time for the plants whose home this is. So, we stuck to the road except in unburned areas. Fires, like tornados back in the Texas Panhandle where I grew up fearing them, are famous for doing great damage in one spot while ignoring one beside it. Tornados have been known to destroy a house but leave a meal on the table. Fire will burn an area but leave a tree here and an island there or a hillside unscathed. It dances to the winds and whither they goest, it will follow. There is much of mystery to see. In some areas, those with heavy groundcover, it’s easy to picture how the fire moved across the land burning everything as it went. In others where the grass and sage and such were thinner, it’s not so easy. Strong winds, presumably, flinging embers forward. How does one half of a thirty-foot tree burn and the other appear unbothered? The more closely I look the more I see that the desolation of nine months ago has been healed at ground level, but skeletons of incinerated juniper, sage, pine, and bushes stand around as reminders and can easily dominate one’s perspective; they are not pretty sights. Surfaces also appear grimmer owing to removal of vegetation leaving dark lava more exposed. I wonder if sage and its cohorts will have a hard time recovering; while grasses, forbs, and wildflowers are doing well, I don’t see signs of the others’ return. I was inspired when I was here shortly after the fire to see green sprigs arising from blackened roots, but they don’t seem to have come to anything. Maybe too early or too dry or just a last gasp; also, as regrowth signs were so sparse, they would have been irresistible to mice and deer. Whenever I pay attention, I see new signs of my ignorance everywhere. Fire science, botany, geology, wildlife biology…so much more is unknown than known to me. Reading to remedy that is one good way to spend the better part of a life, and there was a time when it was more important than now. I honor that way and at times like this miss it, but not with sufficient motivation to change. Thoreau was still identifying and classifying, writing, and organizing his copious notes until practically the moment he died, but he was only in his mid-forties. Muir lived much longer but over the last decades of his life his approach to Nature was less strenuous that when younger. My involvement feels deeper than ever but different in that it too has become less demanding while turning more to the beauty and spirit of the places I go. The balanced has shifted.

Hardy little wildflowers have appeared, and one could imagine them oblivious to what happened while they lay dormant, but I’d bet not. Indian Paintbrush, ubiquitous at all elevations and diverse habitats throughout the West it has seemed to me as I hiked them, have shown up here but not in abundance. Except for the red Paintbrush, yellow and purple are the exclusive colors, except for the lovely white interior of one plant’s dime-sized purple blossoms and a pink flower I saw later. I counted three species of purple and about the same of yellow. It must be late in the season for all these guys. The burn has motivated me toward a more observant trek than usual, which I’m pleased about. Would that I could always be so attentive. I noticed how diverse the forms taken by lava as it spread itself around all those years ago. There are largish heaps occasionally and then narrow strands winding across the land and then small piles and, most of all, solitary chunks scattered about, not to mention collapsed caves of remnant sluices where the viscous currents wound beneath the surface back during the volcanic periods, rising from well below, and then in time the ground above falling into the emptied space. The Monument is characterized by dozens of these things that did not collapse and where bats find homes and visitors wander and wonder. Although I’ve entered several of these caves, I’m not really drawn to them, much preferring illumination to darkness. (If I continue this metaphor I’ll have to deal with the evident analogue: do I prefer surfaces to depth? Better remain literal.) All things considered, a comeback from the fire is well underway, and I’m sure it would greatly appreciate a few heavy rains to boost it along. No one can resist the pull of spring under any circumstances, but when it comes as rebirth after affliction everything counts, everything is a benediction. Speaking of which, I didn’t mention that whatever shape the lava piles take, all are being colonized by growth: grasses, shrubs, sometimes trees. Brave seeds that decided to accept a challenge.

Photo from Lava Beds National Monument Park Service

After the Fire – Lava Beds National Monument

Dr. Brestrup — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:00:10 +0000

And these very conditions mean that some forests will not come back, and more landscapes will turn to arid and semiarid grassland. Each year more of what’s left will burn. A few days ago, I studied a U.S. drought map and the entire West was in some degree of drought and much of that not merely a recent phenomenon; at my home on the North Coast we are ending our second rain season at approximately half of normal and some say we’re actually in a multi-decades drought that is only interrupted from time to time with rainy years. As for here and now, though, nine months have made a significant difference; grasses and a few forbs are returning and in a first brief walk I’ve counted three species of wildflowers. I had speculated that maybe some of the juniper would regenerate since their burning seemed superficial, but that was wrong-headed optimism, at least at first glance; I’ve seen nothing to justify it and in retrospect it sounds naïve. Still, what was consistent darkness, but for a few areas and trees that due to the vagaries of wind had survived the surrounding conflagration, today has a soft green glow decorated with occasional glitter of purple and yellow flowers. The distant view across the relatively flat land north of here is still mostly of those dark sentinels, but closer by signs of better days coming are clear. If we weren’t still in drought, I’m sure it would be even better. But no complaints; the sight before me is like a smile returned to the face of a depressed friend whose grief has yielded to time. Tomorrow I will walk farther and see more.

Photo from Lava Beds National Monument Park Service

Post Fire Lava Beds National Monument

Dr. Brestrup — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:00:05 +0000

I have moved several hundred miles north of the lower Owens Valley where I was camped and am now at Lava Beds N. Monument. I was last here late last summer after the fire that burned 70% of the Monument; ironically, fires to the west brought so much smoke eastward that I was forced to leave earlier than I had wanted to; it was like being awash in fiery dominance. I’ve returned to see how things look nine months later. It’s virtually a cliché to speak of how landscapes regenerate after fires, how most ecosystems have always depended on and adapted to periodic fires, and so forth, which is true and has the added benefit of assuaging the pain of looking at a desolate post-fire landscape. This one was dark and gloomy with bare ground and blackened dirt punctuated by blackened juniper and pine snags standing as if sentinels of what had happened and marching to the horizon. My Stoic nature faced a stiff trial as I observed and walked around; even useful fires doing their natural work leave the workplace looking terrible. But I remember noticing that after only weeks there were already signs of slight green regrowth, which was reassuring. The problem in these times, however, is that as climate disruption moves inexorably along and worsens, all bets are off that depend on historical norms. To begin with, fires now are more common, typically more intense, and cover a wider extent owing to the desiccation and hotter temperatures of the new climate era.

Photo from Lava Beds NPS.