Winter, nostalgia and fire

Montana in winter.  Definitely not the garden spot of North America.

January is the dreariest month out here.  It's been a long time since Indian summer and it's a long time until spring.  Cold and wind.  Overcast skies. Snow flurries.  Snow drifts. That cold north wind cutting like ice.

Oh, moo yourself!

Of course, the stupid cows have to pick this season to have their calves so people are out in all sorts of weather, day and night, hour upon hour.  Have you ever been wet and dry, sweating hot and freezing cold, famished and too tired to eat all at the same time?  And completely exhausted so that you stagger when you walk, but what you have to do is nowhere near done?  This is the season for that.

Winter in a San Gabriel mountains canyon.

My mind drifts to lovely winters in southern California, hikes among the live oaks down into canyons with trickling streams and hidden little water falls dropping into clear, granite-rocked pools.  Or strolling the paths in Descanso Gardens or the Huntington. Or enjoying a lovely day by the reflecting pool at the Getty Malibu.

But there are those Santa Ana winds-fueled brush fires, usually in late summer and fall, but, as this year, in a dry rainy season, they can happen in winter and are usually worse after a series of wet winters, so the chaparral grows lush and dense. It is quite delightful to hike through on your way up to a mountain top to enjoy a spectacular view over the hills and out to the ocean. It's made up of chamise, manzanita, greasewood, yerba buena, scrub oak, toyon, and the lovely California lilac.  The bees that pollinate the lilacs make the most delicious honey.

Descanso Gardens in winter.

But when all that chaparral dries out in the hot, arid summers it becomes tinder for fire.  And the rugged terrain of southern California, the "hills" of which have average slopes of 60 degrees and rise and plunge thousands of feet (Mt. Lukens, within the city limits of Los Angeles is over 5,000 ft. high), encourage anabatic (upslope) and very scary katabatic (downslope) winds, called Santa Anas. That these very rugged mountains are near the ocean only exacerbates the affect they have as nothing impedes them as they race to sea level, picking up speed as they go.  

If you've ever been sailing off the coast when the Santa Anas hit, you get the full force of them.  They can come upon you suddenly and, if you aren't quick to reef your sails, you could be capsized just like that. So you have a good chance of drowning or being gulped down by a great white shark rather than being burned to death like the landlubbers.

Getty Malibu reflecting pool in winter.

Fires are a natural part of the Mediterranean climate cycle, but they are made much worse because of southern California's topography.  And much harder to fight.  The flames rush upslope, feeding on the dry brush and Bishop and knobcone pines that grow on the shaded north slopes, then at the top of the ridge blazing embers and branches are hurled by the wind across the intervening canyon to the slopes of the next ridge, the heavier ones falling to set fire to the downwind ridge.  So, quickly, there is an inferno in inaccessible terrain that can only be fought from the air.  But because of the combination of high peaks and narrow canyons with steep walls and the roaring winds racing violently up, down and through them in Dresden-like firestorms, aircrews fighting them are at deadly peril.  Their water (or retardant) runs can easily be compared to making treetop-level strafing runs into a hail of anti-aircraft fire against a well-entrenched enemy. They are just as dangerous and require just as much planing, calculation of odds, calm professionalism and just plain guts to execute.

 

 

Juliana Turchetti at the controls of her AT-802F

Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss, Juliana sitting on the float.

A pilot I met and chatted with while running around flying errands, Juliana Turchetti, lost her life last summer fighting the Horse Gulch fire in Montana.  She was flying an Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss, a cropduster ag plane adapted to be a fire fighter by fitting it with floats with valves that open to fill with water when the pilot skims a body of water.  He -- or she! -- then flies over the fire and dumps the water on it.  It takes a lot of skill, even on a calm day, to touch the water just right with the floats to take on water and not begin porpoising, which can lead to a cartwheeling crash. And the Fire Boss, with that long, long snout, doesn't have the greatest forward visibility.

Hauser Lake, Montana, on a calm day. Note burn area.

When the winds that drive a wildfire are raging, rushing downslope from canyon walls onto a body of water such as Hauser Lake, the lake that Turchetti was trying to scoop water from, stirring up erratic waves and creating powerful downdrafts and crosswinds, your life is forfeit at the whim of fate.  The hand of fate smashed Turchetti's airplane into the lake and she was gone in an instant.

So when you see planes dropping water and retardant onto wild fires, think how brave the pilots are.  And thank your lucky stars that you are on the ground looking up at them, not in the air with them looking down on those ribbons of wind-driven fire they have to dive into.**

California Winter

It is winter in California, and outside
Is like the interior of a florist shop:
A chilled and moisture-laden crop
Of pink camellias lines the path; and what
Rare roses for a banquet or a bride,
So multitudinous that they seem a glut!

And skiers from the snow line driving home
Descend through almond orchards, olive farms.
Fig tree and palm tree -- everything that warms
The imagination of the wintertime.
If the walls were older one would think of Rome:
If the land were stonier one would think of Spain.

It is raining in California, a straight rain
Cleaning the heavy oranges on the bough,
Filling the gardens till the gardens flow,
Shining the olives, tiling the gleaming tile,
Waxing the dark camellia leaves more green,
Flooding the daylong valleys like the Nile.
~  Karl Shapiro 

** During the 2024 fire season 15 Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Bosses crashed fighting fires. Seven pilots were killed.