Healthy Ecosystems Burn
Fires happen, you hear about them all the time.
Especially in the late summer on the west coast, there’s a seemingly endless stream of wildfires that range from small but scary nuisances to life-changing horrors.
Wildfires in Washington State, 2023
And yes, they hit differently when they burn right across your front yard.
Last Friday, August 4th, a sudden and intense fire swept over my neighbor’s property. It was accidentally ignited by another owner to the west, swept across our shared easement, and jumped the access road - crossing just a few hundred yards from the Riverbend Preserve’s northern gate.
Hours after the fire ignited and leaped the access road into the trees
No one was injured and no real property was lost (apart from lots of fencing) but the fire destroyed a wide swath of the natural landscape, including a beautiful, shady stand of alder and apples trees, a field of blackberries, and lots of forage as it raced east towards the river.
Local and state fire services, already on high alert during wildfire season, were on the scene quickly to dig fire lines. They contained the blaze while it consumed all the fuel it could reach and slowly burned itself down.
It’s sobering to reflect on just how quickly even a small human error can set up a devastating chain reaction.
Earlier that day, this was forest and field
There was a powerful reminder in this.
Years ago, a State Park ranger in Florida shared three simple words with me that challenged my thinking on a lot of levels:
“Healthy ecosystems burn.”
Nature is ready for fire. Nature embraces fire. Nature has spent untold ages preparing innumerable species to resist, recover, reinvest, and return with vigor after fire. Some pine cones only open to release their seeds after they’ve been subjected to fire, keeping them safe and sound until the inevitable, unthinkable event.
Fire clears obstacles to growth. Fire makes way for a stronger, healthier future.
But we resist. Fire means change, and we resist change.
We hold onto things we’re powerless to stop the world from altering, no matter how badly we want them to stay the way they are. Holding onto them tighter won’t stop them from changing, it will just make those changes harder to accept.
But Healthy. Ecosystems. Burn.
***
I hope the Riverbend Preserve will stay safe from fires like these for many years.
I love this land just the way it is, so I want fate to save…to preserve…the majestic stands of Douglas and Noble firs, the Big Leaf maples and the Vine maples, the Western Red cedars and the Hemlocks, to let them grow and thrive until the long cycles of old growth forestry naturally transform and evolve their habitat centuries from now.
But the strong winds that sweep up and down this little valley on summer afternoons, the ones that stir the alders to a joyful, swaying dance along the western borders and make the rigid firs twist and groan in protest, are the very winds that could whip even a small pocket of fire into a roaring, towering, howling wave; they’re the same winds that could push searing flames through these trees at terrifying speed, igniting their oily sap and turning decades of lovingly, naturally cultivated biomass into spidery wisps of ash in minutes.
It would break my heart. It will break my heart.
But healthy ecosystems burn. It’s up to us to let them go.