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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Fear of Fire Can Turn Into Caution

By Rory McClannahan/
Mountain View Telegraph
      The subject of fire isn’t a good one around the house.
       Although neither of our sons have had to deal with evacuations or smoke so thick you can’t see, they still have a deep fear of fire.
       Our oldest son, who is the most verbal of the pair, frets and worries when he sees the plume of smoke rising from the Trigo fire. The youngest doesn’t say much about fire; he tends to deal with problems by ignoring them. Eventually, they come to rest in his 6-year-old subconscious and express themselves in bad dreams.
       I know we aren’t the only parents who deal with fears, both real and imagined, and many times I know what we say might not be helpful.
       I have two fire stories. The first I can’t tell because it isn’t solely my story and I don’t want to embarrass anyone. The second story, however, is all mine.
       I grew up in Los Alamos. Those words might already have heads shaking in acknowledgement.
       In 2001, when the Cerro Grande fire destroyed much of Los Alamos, I was in Washington, D.C., with a group of kids from Moriarty High School. We were all standing in the terminal at Reagan International Airport when everyone started pointing at the televisions all tuned to coverage of the Los Alamos fire. I watched as homes I recognized and the parks I played in were swarmed with flames. The lives of people I knew as friends and neighbors were being turned upside down on CNN.
       As you know, it took weeks before we knew the real extent of the damage and I had to see it first-hand. I took a drive through my old neighborhood, and the places where I camped out in Lee Adair’s front yard and played basketball in Chuck Montoya’s backyard were gone. The homes were gone and cars that had been left behind in the evacuation had literally melted into the ground.
       The forest where my friends and I spent our summers was gone and would not return for centuries. The house where I grew up was destroyed. It was fortunate that my family and I had left Los Alamos more than 20 years ago, but the devastation was still heartbreaking.
       The only thing that remained from our old house was the back gate and a 30-year-old sheet metal storage shed. I asked a firefighter later how that shed could make it through a fire that melted cars, he just shrugged his shoulders and gave an answer about how fires do weird things.
       Maybe it’s because I grew up in the mountains that I have a fear of fire, I don’t know.
       But I do know that fear isn’t so bad when you educate yourself. And that’s what we try to do with the kids. We explain about defensible space, we talk about smoke alarms and ways to get out of the house. Lighters and matches are kept well out of reach. When we go camping, we show the kids how to build a fire pit and how to make sure the fire is extinguished before leaving. We teach them to respect the woods and to leave as little evidence of our visit as possible.
       Word from the Trigo fire is that it is “suspicious,” which is shorthand for “probably caused by a human.”
       I hope that neither of my kids will be responsible for a wildfire and perhaps some day their fears will turn into simple caution.
       Contact Rory McClannahan at 823-7102 or online at editor@mvtelegraph.com.>   

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