It's fire season again and this is what it looks like on the farm. There's a strong argument forwarded by geographers, ecologists, and other land management specialists that we should thin trees and let small, contained fires clear underbrush so that we don't have these massive, dangerous, and difficult to control fires. Some say that we shouldn't save the few remote houses in the wilderness. As a regional reporter told me, "There are people trying to escape society and the government, they don't pay taxes and complain about state intervention, but when a fire comes along they expect the government to come in and save their home, putting thousands of firefighters' lives in danger." If firefighters weren't trying to avoid those homes, they could allow for the fires to make a straight line that's easier to access and contain.
Aside from forest management and residents, we also have this drought. Plants are drying up and make for great kindling. While I sit in this inescapable smoke, coughing, wheezing, tearing up, I wonder if dry farming is enough to spare us from being set ablaze. I don't irrigate because I want the aquifers to be available for the plants and animals that help maintain an ecology that won't burn us up. I'm just 5 acres. But what if everyone else didn't irrigate? What if they also didn't turn up the soil that releases greenhouse gases? What if they didn't use fertilizers made from converting and burning fossil fuels? What if we in Mendocino didn't import 98% of our food and lowered greenhouse gas emissions? I wonder if that would spare us from slow asphyxiation.
All you can do is listen to Dead Flag Blues. https://vimeo.com/30795337
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