Wild fire
I notice there’s a specific language for referring to the California wildfires that ignite and spread every year, regularly, like a late-blooming, fast-growing, flowering ivy. People have a tendency to speak of fires the same way they speak of cancer, unconsciously ascribing a certain agency.
Fires don’t just burn, in the news. They rage. They jump highways and encircle private properties. They race up hills and devour acres of dried forest, and celebrity homes in Malibu. They are aggressive, they are uncontrollable, they are spontaneous… they sound almost playful, although it’s a kind of big-mean-cat playfulness, and we are the mouse being tortured to death for its amusement.
And every year, the story is reported in the same breathless manner. Regardez!! The plumes of smoke fill the sky! Just like last year! And the year before! I suppose this is simply the manner of journalists, although there’s an excitement in their tone that you don’t get with space shuttles launching, or the body count in Iraq, or the 30th abandoned baby found in a dumpster this year.
There’s something about fire. The images fill the news with a September 11th like urgency. The devastation, even in the areas where humans are likely to be little affected, fills people with the sort of awe I imagine accompanied the sinking of the Titanic. It’s just so … BIG. And fast! And hypnotic.
I just got a new apartment, and it has a fireplace. I know I’ll spend my winter evenings curled on the couch, staring into it. I’ll ascribe it agency, too, in my head. It’s cheerful. It’s dancing. It’s the sweet little niece of the monstrous dragon consuming Malibu. I’ll feed it like a pet… like my cat, which is one thing to a person, and another to a mouse. Fire’s great when you’re not the mouse.
