Hey, everyone. Back during the 1980's I lived in Kansas for several years. I was working a contract job out there. I had a new Subaru, four wheel drive car. We liked to drive to Kansas City or Wichita, go to a mall, normal family stuff. Our kids were young and looking back, Carley and I were just kids ourselves.
One weekend we were cruising out I-35 toward Wichita. It had been really dry for a while. The landscape is extremely flat, as you know. The wind blows perpetually, usually 30 miles an hour, maybe only 20 at night. It's not all that unusual to see tractor trailers laid on their side. Kansas is surely an elemental place to live.
On this particular day we saw rolling clouds of smoke that were beginning to obscure the sun. We could see the smoke for 20 miles before we got to it. We came to a roadblock. There were fewer cars on the road in those years and this was certainly true of this remote place between Topeka and Wichita. I rolled down my window to converse with a State Trooper at the roadblock. He was tall, polite and middle aged. He wore a crew cut and had flashing blue eyes that looked at me and then swept over the boys in the backseat, then to my wife and finally back to me. He had the look. You know, that look in the eyes that says, "I've seen a lot of trouble and there's not much that shakes my tree". He looked to the west into the rolling, massive wall of smoke.
"We have a wildfire that is being pushed by this wind. The wind is strong enough that the fire has jumped the Interstate and is rolling on to the north."
I said, "Should I go back?"
He flashed a smile. He looked at me as if gauging me.
"I figure that you can make it. It might be a bit exciting to you. But see here, youngster, whatever you do, don't stop in the fire. Just keep going. You hear me okay on that?" He glanced at the boys again.
"Yes, sir. I hear you."
We drove on through the roadblock and entered the thick smoke. The smoke was thicker, probably, than any fog I've driven through. We had our windows up and air conditioning on but the smell of burned vegetation was overpowering. I could feel heat beginning to scorch my face on the left side, which was to the south. The fire was coming from that direction. We are talking about miles of this scenario. I would guess the fire covered an area of twenty miles, up and down the interstate. My speed was necessarily slow because I couldn't see very well but I drove faster than was safe due to the trooper's admonition not to stop. I knew that we had reached the actual fire when things got much brighter. Then I saw a wall of flames that was rolling over 4 lanes of road plus the medium. It was not in contact with the road because there was nothing there to burn. We drove through a tunnel of flames for a few miles and I let no grass grow under me, you can bet.
The heat got a little scary. I had dedicated my life to keeping my family out of dangerous situations and now our trip had put them in harm's way. It was with a thankful heart that I saw the flames disappear and the smoke receding in the rear view mirror. We arrived in Wichita in good spirits and ate well, played video games, shopped and saw a movie.
I have had some fire fighting training. The asbestos suit, setting burn pits full of kerosene on fire, then walking right up to the pit under the cooling cover of a fire hose on full fog. Then you let the flames roll all the way over you. This is to learn to trust your spray and your hose man. I have crawled through smoke trailers in full dress-out when it was 100 degrees outside. They have pipes to crawl over and under when you can't see a thing. There are moving floors and dead ends. Lots of fun, especially if you go to the hospital for heat prostration. Then you get into a real-life situation where you have to fight a fire in an electrical board room, in total darkness, with a Scott air-pack on, deep in the bowels of a nuclear plant at 2 o'clock in the morning. The thing is, all that is a joke compared to worrying about your family in a fire situation. Not all that bad an experience, but it could have been. Just a little more salt and pepper on the dish of life.
From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
One weekend we were cruising out I-35 toward Wichita. It had been really dry for a while. The landscape is extremely flat, as you know. The wind blows perpetually, usually 30 miles an hour, maybe only 20 at night. It's not all that unusual to see tractor trailers laid on their side. Kansas is surely an elemental place to live.
On this particular day we saw rolling clouds of smoke that were beginning to obscure the sun. We could see the smoke for 20 miles before we got to it. We came to a roadblock. There were fewer cars on the road in those years and this was certainly true of this remote place between Topeka and Wichita. I rolled down my window to converse with a State Trooper at the roadblock. He was tall, polite and middle aged. He wore a crew cut and had flashing blue eyes that looked at me and then swept over the boys in the backseat, then to my wife and finally back to me. He had the look. You know, that look in the eyes that says, "I've seen a lot of trouble and there's not much that shakes my tree". He looked to the west into the rolling, massive wall of smoke.
"We have a wildfire that is being pushed by this wind. The wind is strong enough that the fire has jumped the Interstate and is rolling on to the north."
I said, "Should I go back?"
He flashed a smile. He looked at me as if gauging me.
"I figure that you can make it. It might be a bit exciting to you. But see here, youngster, whatever you do, don't stop in the fire. Just keep going. You hear me okay on that?" He glanced at the boys again.
"Yes, sir. I hear you."
We drove on through the roadblock and entered the thick smoke. The smoke was thicker, probably, than any fog I've driven through. We had our windows up and air conditioning on but the smell of burned vegetation was overpowering. I could feel heat beginning to scorch my face on the left side, which was to the south. The fire was coming from that direction. We are talking about miles of this scenario. I would guess the fire covered an area of twenty miles, up and down the interstate. My speed was necessarily slow because I couldn't see very well but I drove faster than was safe due to the trooper's admonition not to stop. I knew that we had reached the actual fire when things got much brighter. Then I saw a wall of flames that was rolling over 4 lanes of road plus the medium. It was not in contact with the road because there was nothing there to burn. We drove through a tunnel of flames for a few miles and I let no grass grow under me, you can bet.
The heat got a little scary. I had dedicated my life to keeping my family out of dangerous situations and now our trip had put them in harm's way. It was with a thankful heart that I saw the flames disappear and the smoke receding in the rear view mirror. We arrived in Wichita in good spirits and ate well, played video games, shopped and saw a movie.
I have had some fire fighting training. The asbestos suit, setting burn pits full of kerosene on fire, then walking right up to the pit under the cooling cover of a fire hose on full fog. Then you let the flames roll all the way over you. This is to learn to trust your spray and your hose man. I have crawled through smoke trailers in full dress-out when it was 100 degrees outside. They have pipes to crawl over and under when you can't see a thing. There are moving floors and dead ends. Lots of fun, especially if you go to the hospital for heat prostration. Then you get into a real-life situation where you have to fight a fire in an electrical board room, in total darkness, with a Scott air-pack on, deep in the bowels of a nuclear plant at 2 o'clock in the morning. The thing is, all that is a joke compared to worrying about your family in a fire situation. Not all that bad an experience, but it could have been. Just a little more salt and pepper on the dish of life.
From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
Comments
Post a Comment