Under the Volcano (4): This Time as Farce

The red dot at left is our brush truck. Click to embiggen.

Things have been pretty quiet on the Wetmore fire, although the Forest Service is still patrolling at a reduced level. I thought it was safe to put on my city clothes, go to the city (Colorado Springs), and do city things (drink cappuccino, visit the computer store).



Oh, no, not so fast.



As I am nearing home, the cell phone starts ringing. Another fire call. Closer to home, I think I spot our brush truck heading away through the center of the burned area, leaving a cloud of dust on the dry gravel road.



Once changed into firefighting clothes, I call on the radio, get directions, and before long am creeping in the Jeep over steep, rocky, two-track roads into the burn. I've never been here before, but the radio helps. "Yeah, turn by that old water truck. You'll see where we cut the fence."



I find the two firefighters who were ahead of me standing on a knoll, looking out over the burn. There had been some smoke, they say, but a Forest Service crew was in the area. Maybe those other firefighters were just burning a "bone pile" of charred wood, or they had otherwise stirred up smoke in their mop-up operations.



Meanwhile, we see a smoking stump a couple of hundred yards away—at the spot from which I took this photo—so we hike over and put it out. That way we feel that we have done something to justify the drive into the burn.



It will never be easier to hike through oak brush (Gambel oak) than it is today, because it will come back in the spring and be thicker than ever.