Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Ring of Fire

and it burns burns burns... though a little less so than the previous few days. It was my office's turn to go monitor a wildfire in the park and make sure it didn't spread into the Boatin Reserve (we have several nature reserves inside the national park where much stricter laws protect its pristine state). Any-hoo, this wasn't some Towering Inferno, and I was no Steve McQueen (if you know this, I love you).

The wildfire was on the face in the treeless zone of one of the mountains on the Northwestern border of the National Park, and after burning for several days, it was already reduced to pockmark flare-ups left over from heat trapped beneath the surface of dry dense grass and shrubs. Armed with sleeping bags, camping food, shovels and rubber fire swatters, the plan was to camp around the burnt area, watch for flare-ups and quickly stamp them out, until the next day when the next shift of people arrived, or the storm front arrived, whichever came first.


Assuming to count as an extinguished fire, the flame must be at least 2 sq. ft. and put out by one person, I thusly put out 0.34 fires that day. Sadly, I do not have any photos of the event, but you may have seen the wildfire problems in Bulgaria and elsewhere on the Balkans in the news recently. Well, here is an artist depiction of the entirety of my contribution to this tragedy:

Call me what you will - a hero, a leader, a perfect example of pure courage... I'll leave it to history to decide.

All in all, it was a great outdoor excursion with some of the people from my office, a great chance to chat, drink rakia, eat spam (c'mon, we were camping), and camp out on the side of a mountain in only a sleeping bag, watching not the night stars, but the far off lightning storm roll its way to you from several mountains and valleys away. At 11pm came the lightning and some rain. At 2am came the hail, and with that, the mass exodus off the mountain and back to the cars (where several of us were already waiting since the 11pm fiasco).

Since then, I've still been trying to get my normal sleep schedule back... without luck. They say experiencing wildfires first-hand can traumatize you... but it also forges an everlasting bond between you and your comrades. I may have come out of this with both.

God I'm deep.

Happy 1 Year Anniversary in Bulgaria B-20's!