Fire It is fire season in Arizona. There are a number of blazes in various stages of containment all across the middle of the state right now. I'm no authority on other Western states, but Arizona gives their fires colorful names, the way meteorologists identify hurricanes and tropical storms. For example, the annual burn-up on Mount Lemmon near Tucson is called the "Cottonwood" fire. When the same mountain caught fire two years ago, it was named the "Aspen" fire. Somewhere out there is a good reason for not simply calling it the "Mount Lemmon" fire each year, along with a digital attachment such as "05". This naming of fires offers us citizens valuable insight as to how our tax dollars are really spent. There's also the 55,000-acre "Three" fire burning out by Roosevelt Lake, as well as the "Cedar" and "Bench" fires up by the Mogillon Rim (in the White Mountains, which were so devastated not long ago by the "Rodeo-Chediski" fire). Then there's the "Sunset Point" fire, which closed down I-17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff up by - you guessed it - Sunset Point, north of Black Canyon City. The section of burning desert that has grabbed all the headlines, though, is the "Cave Creek Complex" fire, a merger of sorts between the "Bronco" and "Humboldt" fires in the Northeast Valley. Calculated to have consumed 12,500 acres thus far, the flames are now threatening luxury homes not far from the tony desert towns of Cave Creek and Carefree. Let me say at this point that I have seen and smelled houses burning down before, but those fires were deliberately set - settle down, now - by the local fire departments as the property owners were taking out old structures, making way for new ones. I imagine luxury homes smell a lot nicer when they burn, though. Corian countertops, cedar closets, fine leather and genuine furs, oak cabinets, mahogany armoires and baby grand pianos, not to mention all that good food... It's an olfactory treat, I bet. This is only the beginning. Before summer is over, fires will have ravaged the deserts and foothills throughout the West. Slowly, the people who chose to move as far away from civilization as possible are realizing why all those pristine lots were available in the first place. It's like finding a reasonably priced mansion in the hills of Laguna, or a cheap double-wide in Wichita Falls. Everything is temporary. That's why the Scriptures were so clear about putting our dwellings on a solid base, not on fresh sand. Developers must not much read the Bible, though, because there are houses going up all around Wickenburg, and if the fires don't reduce those things to ashes, the monsoon floods will render them moot. Both elements are well on their way, as most of these fires have been started by lightning. If not this year, then next, or the one after: Wild fires are inevitable, and they are unstoppable. These are the risks associated with uprooting the desert and attempting to live where people really shouldn't be living. Just because water can be pumped through a pipe and electrical wires can be strung doesn't mean there's a habitat waiting for you out there. There's more to getting good reception than putting up a satellite dish. But they don't understand that until a scorpion gets them in the pantry, or a Harris hawk plucks another Sharpei off the lawn. Fire is good, a thing for which humanity ought to be eternally grateful. In Greek mythology, it was stolen from the Gods by Prometheus, who gave it to mankind (an act for which he was to be tortured endlessly, presumably by the Bush administration). When it comes to building new homes in the path of wild fires in Arizona, Pandora's Box has already been flung wide open. Paul Heller 6/23/05 << back to the archives
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