Earlier this month, I woke to the smell of smoke.
Lying in bed, eyes not even open yet, the scent of old ashes told me the fire was far away. Not a breath of wind disturbed the leaves on the maple outside my window, yet smoke from a fire more than 60 kilometres to the north permeated the air.
I knew about fire No. 72 up by Maple Mountain. The reports suggested it was very big. More big fires burned all around Lake Temagami, and east of River Valley. Smaller fires burned closer to home – but still a fair distance away. I was concerned, but not worried.
Sunrise that morning was spectacular.
“Red sky in morning, sailor take warning” was meant to suggest a coming storm. Yet no storm was in the forecast. At least not anything that would bring rain.
It’s dry here in the forest. We haven’t had a good soaking rain for a very long time. Oh yes, there have been showers, and even the odd downpour. Yet the soil under the trees remains bone dry. And most of those storms came with lightning. Nearly all the hundreds of fires in Ontario this summer have been caused by lightning. The forest desperately needs rain, but so far this month at least, the rain has always been accompanied by lightning.
The tricky thing about lightning fires is that it is usually days later when the flames emerge from the ground. Lightning will hit a tree, and blast through to the ground. It smoulders there in the dry duff until it gets enough air to ignite. It could grow slowly for a while, then a gust of wind changes everything. By the time it is noticed, the little rain that came with the storm is long gone, the forest floor dry and ready to burn.
Fire is a natural process in forest life. It removes duff and debris, it prepares the soil to receive new seeds from the pines, it releases potash and other nutrients to help the forest plants to thrive, it kills invasive insects and disease.
At the same time, fire is fearful for those of us who live in the north. Fire is good for the forest, but not so good for the people who live here or nearby.
One evening, when the wind suddenly shifted from south to north, we could see the smoke roll in from the northern fires. Within minutes, the clear view across the lake disappeared. The first reaction — is there a new fire just over the horizon?
A couple of neighbours called to ask. I told them I thought the smoke was from far. I think we would see a plume of smoke from a big fire nearby, but this smoke was general, and low, and all those big fires near Temagami were directly upwind of the sudden appearance of smoke. Still, we remain vigilant.
