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KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
TOPICS:
A WORLD AFLAME
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
[My mind is not on things apologetical today, so I hope you will make
allowances for the narrow focus of this edition of the E-Letter.--KK]
This morning's drive to work was eerie. The freeway I take cuts through
the middle of a large open-space area. To the north the land belongs to
Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. To the south are 5,800 acres
comprising Mission Trails Regional Park. On both sides of the freeway
there was nothing but charcoal, as far as the eye could see.
But the eye couldn't see very far, not much more than a few hundred
feet, because of the smoky haze that hugged the rolling ground. In a
week or two, when the air clears, the devastation will be more visible
and more sobering.
The wildfires have been contained in the western parts of the county,
where the more populated areas are, but they continue unabated in the
eastern reaches, where homes and lives are still going up in flames.
Yesterday two small communities disappeared entirely from the map.
We have not yet heard from all of our employees, but apparently none of
us lost a home to the blaze, though at least one family was evacuated,
and several of us did some preparatory packing, just in case. My thanks
go to those who have kept Catholic Answers and its staffers in their
prayers.
Our office, which suffered no damage, is not far from Mission Trails
Regional Park. Often, during extended lunch breaks or after work, I hike
there. The chaparral-covered hills rise nearly a thousand feet above the
park entrance, making for an invigorating trek to the peaks.
I don't relish the prospect of now having to step through a moonscape.
>From what I could see from the freeway, the ground has been denuded.
The only things left are the skeletons of the larger bushes and trees.
The grass and small plants have been vaporized.
Smoke and ash drift everywhere, cover everything. When I flew into
Lindbergh Field Sunday afternoon, coming home from speaking in Illinois,
we landed through a thick cloud of soot. As soon as we entered the brown
goop the acrid smell of burned manzanita came through the plane's air
conditioning vents. Looking out the window, I could see flashes of red
leaping from ridges.
When I got to the airport parking lot, I found my Jeep coated with
particles from the fire. The afternoon sun was deep red. This morning I
found the concrete parking lot at work marked with dark streaks, as
though someone had strewn handfuls of black dirt everywhere and then
fitfully tried to hose the dirt away, giving up halfway through the job.
Yesterday the newspaper said the burned area was as large as Chicago--I
am from Chicago, so I have some sense of what that means--but today the
burned area is larger still, and it will grow throughout the week. One,
two, many Chicagos? No one is predicting with any confidence. Already
the blackened area is twice the size of the big Laguna Fire of 1970.
This fire is far and away the largest to hit Southern California in
recorded times.
I first learned about it when I got to the airport in St. Louis and
heard the announcement that our flight would be delayed because the main
air traffic control tower, which was in the path of the flames, had been
evacuated. I called my wife, who told me the fire had advanced to within
three or four miles of our home, and I told her to be ready to get out
with whatever she could stuff into the trunk of the car.
Then I boarded the plane and was out of communication with her for four
hours. Would I have a home when we landed? Would we even make it to San
Diego, or would we be diverted to Phoenix? If the latter, I planned to
rent a car and drive west--on the freeway, if possible, and on back
roads, if necessary.
As it turned out, the fire did not move further toward our home. Sunday
night we numbly watched television reports of familiar areas succumbing
to waves of flame. How little man can do against such forces! This is an
arid land. Hillsides are covered mainly with low-lying plants. Few grow
taller than head high, yet the flames they fuel reach up a hundred feet
and more.
Then there are the eucalyptus trees, not native to Southern California
but brought originally from Australia. They grow rapidly and widely and
surely are the most common trees in the region. When aflame, they are
torches. Their oily wood burns fast and spews sparks that carry far with
the winds, which at times were moving at highway speeds.
Blessedly, in most of the county the winds are now gone. Outside my
office window not a leaf rustles. This is good for the firemen but bad
for those who hope a stiff breeze will take away the pall and allow them
to breathe normally again.
It must be especially inconvenient for those with respiratory ailments,
but everyone is affected. I would like to get some exercise by taking my
mountain bike onto canyon trails near my home, but that would be
imprudent. Heavy breathing draws in too much ash.
We all will need to be patient. Let the breeze return in a week or two,
when the fires have been contained and as many homes and lives as
possible saved. Those of us who are out of danger can put up with the
small inconvenience. (It might help if we romanticize that we are
experiencing a nineteenth-century London fog.)
A year ago a small section of Mission Trails Regional Park burned, just
a few dozen acres. All that remained were black stubs, widely spaced.
The ground, which had been covered with grass and low bushes, was bare
and sooty. The earth looked so thoroughly dead that it was hard to
imagine any life returning.
Then, a few months ago, I happened to look at those hillsides again.
>From a distance there was no obvious evidence of fire. New grass had
emerged and had filled in the spaces between the dead bushes. In another
year the remains of those bushes will be hidden beneath new growth.
Their blackened branches will last for decades--decomposition is slow in
a land of little rain--but they will become background features.
Such will be the story, too, of the hundreds of thousands of acres that
have burned in this week's fire. Everything living has disappeared; the
entire landscape seems sterilized, void of the least possibility of
life. And then, when the meager rains come, the rebirth will begin.
The poor soil, having been fertilized with ash, will send forth new
life. Birds will flit about and will find fresh places to nest.
Scurrying and crawling creatures will return, moving in from unburned
tracts. Man will return too, rebuilding houses and rebuilding lives.
The mystery of death is followed by the miracle of life. Helplessness is
overcome by perseverance, disappointment by hope. The ash of autumn,
when watered, produces the blades of spring, both in the land and in the
soul.
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