PHILADELPHIA THEATRE COMPANY, OCTOBER 2019
Last year, a small fire began from a gunshot at a shooting range just a couple of miles from my childhood home the Colorado mountains. This small fire ignited a larger fire, which became the largest in the valley’s recent history. It blazed for months, reaching less than a quarter mile from my parents. The fire destroyed close to 13,000 acres, a few homes, and fighting it cost over 17 million dollars.
Hundreds of firefighters, both professional and volunteer, kept that massive fire at bay and from destroying even more homes and forest. Emergency services came from all edges of the country to help, while the community came together to support those who had to evacuate their homes with food, shelter, and necessities. While the fire blazed on, the people of the neighboring towns came out to support the first responders with hot meals and words of thanks and encouragement. This community was devastated by the fire, but also found resilience in their coming together. When I go home to visit, the fire comes up in conversation regularly, it’s clearly changed people—they are more appreciative of the beautiful forest, their community, and firefighters—they know how quickly it could all be lost.
Small fires happen every day.
Sometimes they are extinguished.
Sometimes they burn themselves out.
Sometimes they spread.
Sometimes, they grow and we can’t fight them alone.
These are the critical moments of our lives.
When a fire has spread, either literally or metaphorically, those who love us most grab their hoses and fight it with us. Or if they can’t fight it with us, they stand by our sides and support us while we fight. A large fire like that one doesn’t just happen to one person, it happens to a community. And our personal fires effect not only us but our family and friends. The irony of life, I’ve found, is that adversity often provides opportunities to grow both personally, and closer to people we love.
Years from now, I know that my friends and family will still be talking about the fire—where they were, what role they took, the new friendships that were forged, who slept in who’s house—it’s something that they’ve been through together now. In a way, I have too, from afar, because I love all of them and I love my hometown. I was on the phone with them for daily updates, I reached out to people I hadn’t spoken to for years to make sure they were okay, I felt more connected with the community than I had in the 20-something years since I moved away.
When your parents’ house is close to being consumed in a massive, raging fire, it’s frightening, that is undeniable. I would never claim the fire was good. Forest fires are devastating forces, destroying wildlife, people, and communities. But it also remains true that to some extent, forest fires are natural, and that wildlife requires a certain amount of burning down for regrowth.
The mountainside above and around the town is charred. The trees are blackened skeletons of what they once were. I look forward to seeing nature restore itself, to study where and how the growth happens, and to witness the budding small green leaves that will peek out from the ash, and become the new trees that spring up to replace the old.