The Human Obsession with Fire

The cheery campfire can be deadly and
start fires miles away.

July 2016. Pamela, our grandson, Kieran, and I were hiking up the climbers trail on the side of Mount Oberlin above Logan Pass in Glacier National Park.  It is not a park trail but an access trail for mountain climbers heading for the summit of Mt Oberlin. However, it was a part of my trail patrol.  Mountain climbers have a bad habit of taking short cuts across the alpine vegetation and part of my job was to stop them from leaving foot prints from which it might take up to one-hundred years for plants to recover. 

Our primary job at Glacier is campground hosting.  Today was our day off, so we were on the mountain for fun.  Mount Oberlin stands like a giant triangular chunk of rock about 8,200 feet high.  Its southeastern flank defines Logan Pass. On the other side it provides one of the walls of a large cirque with Mount Cannon and Clements Mountain from which the Birdwoman Falls flows.  

The meadows on the southeastern flank were a mass of color. That was another reason for our being there; viz. Pamela's passion for wild flowers. As you follow the climbers' trail you are above the tree-line. Flowers of yellow, red, purple, and white mingled with a wide assortment of berries. Glacier has over a thousand species of wildflowers.  The landscape was a panorama of marvelous colors with the occasional outcropping of rock and beautiful waterfalls. The sky above the summit was a rich blue with a sprinkling of white fluffy clouds. A perfect day.  

Even though we weren't on duty we had the park radio with us. We never go anywhere in the park without our radio since that is our only link with the outside world, and we have frequently needed it for emergencies, to get assistance or report a problem even when we were off duty.  This day we heard a call between Logan Pass rangers and dispatch that help was needed to find and assist a fallen mountain climber on Mount Oberlin.  We let dispatch and the ranger below know that we were already over a mile up the mountain and would help. 

We climbed rapidly watching for the injured climber, asking those who went by on their way down if they had seen anyone in need.  We were at around 7,800 feet and coming out of the meadows. All that was above us were jagged ledges, ice fields and scree. We could see the rest of the trail to the summit through binoculars. No fallen climbers to be seen.  (Footnote: With her pride being more hurt than her body, the fallen climber had walked right past us without identifying herself to us.) 

As I was reporting to dispatch and the other ranger I saw a thin ribbon of smoke rising from the valley far below.  I knew it was in the vicinity of the Reynolds back-country campground, but campfires were not permitted at that campground.  I asked the ranger closest to us, but still about a mile down the mountain, if he could see the smoke. No. He was too low on the mountain to see into the valley. In the time it took to ask him the smoke went from a thin ribbon to plum. 

"Glacier Dispatch. 219-Vance."  I called on the radio. 

"219-Vance,"  dispatch acknowledged. 

"We have a fire by Reynolds campground.  I say again. We have a fire by Reynolds campground."   

After that all hell seemed to break loose.  Before Pamela, Kieran and I could get off Mt Oberlin the St. Mary valley was filled with smoke.  It was not a lightening strike. It was a human breaking the fire ban rule. We watched in horror as the fire grew.  It was very late that night before we got everyone safely down from Logan Pass and we got to go home. 

The park was lucky in 2016.  We only lost 4,000 acres. The next year (2017) we were not so lucky.  Pamela and I had to evacuate our Avalanche campground when a fire that destroyed over 40,000 acres came within a half mile.  The fire did destroy a historic chalet and the world-class fire crews fought valiantly to save the historic McDonald Lodge, our precious Cedar and Hemlock rain forest, and Avalanche Campground. Avalanche is the oldest campground in the park. Helicopters with buckets and the giant Canadian super-scooper planes dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on the fire while ground crews put up what is call Rent-a-Rain.  That's a relatively new system for providing moisture and raising humidity with a gigantic sprinkler system attached to 4-inch water lines.  We all knew that it was going to be a long fall. The fire would burn until it was covered by snow.  Actually it is possible for fire to smolder in the roots of trees under the snow and rekindle in the spring.  Fortunately the Sprague Creek fire of 2017 died that winter.     

This year (2018) fire season started as usual. The phenomenal panoramic views to which our visitors are normally treated were a grey-tone silhouette of our mountains. The air was thick with smoke from fires north and west of us in the US and Canada. This is the time of year we sit on pins and needles. All of the fire towers are manned and checking in routinely around the clock. Anything out of the ordinary would send a helicopter or a team of rangers on foot to make sure there was no fire. Two years in a row we had had a significant fire, plus a number of smaller less dramatic fires.  There were already air quality alerts and fire warnings.  Most of the country around the park had a fire ban.  The Haines Scale was 6 out of 6 - it couldn't get worse.  The Haines Scale is a measurement which at Level 6 told us that our forest was extremely susceptible to fires and that any existing or new fires would act in an unusual and erratic manner. Not good. Not good at all. 

On one of our days off we went to visit Many Glacier; an area of marvelous mountains, more than its fair share of glaciers, and phenomenal hikes. The camper next to us had a fire. Why?  They weren't cooking on the fire. They weren't even looking at the fire. It was exceptionally hot for northwestern Montana, so they didn't need it for warmth. They were just burning wood.  At  1030 p.m. the man poured fire starter on the fire. It flared and sent hot embers well up into the forest canopy setting several dry branches on fire. He also burned his camp chair and dumped those embers on the ground covered with dry pine needles.  When I pointed out to him that his behavior was dangerous he replied "sorry", in a I-don't-give-a-s*** voice, and proceeded to kick the fire sending more sparks into the air as he put more wood on it.

What is the human obsession with sitting around watching wood burn?  Campers will even drive off and leave a campfire burning.  Often people aren't even paying any attention to the fire but they feel they must have it burning or they're not camping. 

 

The Howe Ridge fire moving toward the shore of Lake
McDonald where it destroyed homes and historic buildings.

Only days after the Many Glacier incident there was fire reported on Howe Ridge just west of our campground.  This is part of the area that was burned in 2003 by the famous Roberts Fire. There was plenty of fuel due to the dead trees from the 2003 fire, so the fire burned hot.  In 2017 the Sprague Creek Fire took almost a month before it was threatening our campground, forcing us to evacuate.  No so this year.  Only five days after the fire was spotted we had cinders the size of golf balls falling into our campground and over 300 understandably concerned campers. Within hours the fire had burned down along Lake McDonald destroying a line of houses and historic buildings. Two of our good friends who are Law Enforcement Rangers, barely got out alive because people were refusing to evacuate.  They had burning trees falling on both sides of the road as they raced to safety.  One tree across the road and they would have been dead.  These same two friends showed up at Avalanche Campground within an hour of their narrow escape with lights flashing and calling over their public address systems - "Evacuate. Evacuate now!"  Tent campers and those in vehicles under twenty-one feet long were sent east through Logan Pass. This route was away from the fire. Those of us with trailers or vehicles over twenty-one feet long had to go right by the fire. It was our only way out.  Pamela and I led a rag-tag convoy of RV campers west through the fire lines to safety at the south end of Lake McDonald sixteen miles away. We spent the night in the visitor center parking lot, but everyone was safe. 

The Howe Ridge fire racing toward us. 

The next day we moved to Apgar Campground where the park had a place for us.  A fire ban was announced.  Better late than never. Unfortunately the wording of the ban was that the ban didn't take effect until midnight that night.  I couldn't believe it. People wanted to have campfires!  What is the human obsession with sitting around watching wood burn?  In this case, if they wanted to watch wood burn they could walk across the road and look at the other end of the lake. There the sky was red with flames.  Numerous people had lost everything. Three-hundred lives had been in danger.  People had had to swim out into the lake to escape the fire and be rescued by boats. There would be an evacuation warning for most of the Lake McDonald area but they wanted to have a campfire!  The air was so thick with smoke that we (staff) were being issued respirators. You couldn't see and you could hardly breathe, but people wanted their campfires.   

That evening I saw a woman at a nearby campsite, who had insisted that she was going to have a campfire until midnight,  getting her fire ready.  I stood watching.  I couldn't believe her.  The camp hosts had explained to her why it was not wise to have a fire.  No deal. She was going to have a fire.  Fortunate for us she had no idea how to start a campfire and was ultimately unsuccessful.  

Historically there were definite reasons for having a campfire.  One cooked on their campfire.  In six years of working in Glacier campgrounds from May 1st to September 30th., we have seen some 50,000  campers come and go. An extremely small percentage ever cooked on their campfire.  Historically the campfire was also used to deter predatory animals and provide heat.  Today you can't leave a fire burn while you're sleeping.  Few today are seen warming themselves by a morning fire.  In short, there is no modern reason.  It is just something people seem to think they must do when they camp.  I have heard the argument about the psycho-social aspects of a campfire, but, as I mentioned, I generally see them burning and being ignored. What is our obsession?   Unless you are cooking, all a campfire does is burn precious wood, pollute the air and risk starting a forest fire.  Over seventy-five percent of all wildfires today are caused by humans. What is our obsession?

I know I'll never have an answer.  I also know that as long as people go camping they'll want to set something on fire.  But I would still beg of you to look at pictures of the fires that devastate the west each year and consider not demanding a campfire the next time you go into the wood.  If you must have a fire, take a propane fire-ring. They look like a campfire but they don't throw sparks.   Remember what Smokey the Bear says, "Only you can prevent wildfires."   And that's the truth.