by Marina Weatherly, Stevensville
A few weeks ago, lightning struck on the mountain just above my home in the Bitterroot Valley, and a wildfire, fanned by strong wind gusts, quickly raged across the mountainside. Evacuation notices were quickly issued in my neighborhood. My husband had just left town, but many folks immediately offered help and a safe place to stay. Strangers were volunteering trailers and pasture for livestock for my neighbors and trucks and trailers rumbled up and down the road evacuating animals. Within just a few hours my neighborhood was evacuated, and I spent that night and many others watching the flames dance wildly on the mountain from where I was safely camped.
Over the next 12 days of evacuation and active wildfire, I witnessed incredible teamwork, sacrifice, respect and caring between neighbors, community, County Sheriff’s Departments, Red Cross volunteers, and the over 600 fire personnel: Fire protection teams, Rural Fire Departments, U.S.F.S., D.N.R.C., pilots, wildfire contractors and Incident Teams and Hot Shots from all over the country. The large fire camp at the end of my road was efficient, the mood respectful and focused as everyone worked together cooperatively on a complex operation with a common goal.
Now, three weeks later, we are finally blessed with rain and our beautiful valley is no longer engulfed in thick smoke from this and many other fires burning in the area. Unhealthy air alerts have been lifted. Our homes, thankfully, are safe and I am so grateful to all those who worked so hard around the clock to protect them.
In a county of extreme divisiveness, like so much of our country, there was, for a brief moment, a spirit of unity and caring for one another. Everyone was supporting each other, respectful and grateful on both sides for the cooperation. Neighbor helping neighbor, stranger helping stranger – regardless of differences, politics, ideologies and personal agendas. All that noise dissolved, and we were just people helping people. But it took an emergency – the threat to loss of homes – for this to come about.
I can only hope that this same spirit of unity and caring can manifest in all of humanity to protect the home we all share. For it too, is under threat. It can no longer be denied that our home is in crisis and is responding with increasingly intense natural disasters in many forms and the expense of reparation is becoming unsustainable to us, the taxpayers, not to mention the personal losses of world-wide displacement, suffering, and often death for both humans and the natural world. We have no other place to evacuate to, and only now, this moment, to act together in unity and cooperation to help our neighbor, strangers and all of humanity to protect the only home upon which our very existence depends – for ourselves, our children and grandchildren and their children. This should never be a partisan issue, for we all share the same home. But until a cultural shift happens, let’s put our differences aside and unite in November and thereafter for this one worthy common goal and choose leaders who truly care about protecting our only home now and into the future. There’s fire on the mountain, folks, and the wind is picking up!
Roger Mitchell says
I agree with you, Marina, for most of your comment. Truly, neighbors helping neighbors in the face of catastrophe, impending or already realized, is one of the high points of human relationships. I am glad that you were able to emerge from this in relatively good shape.
However, you left the reality of life under the threat of wildfire at the end of paragraph #4 and veered off into an unnamed hypothetical situation in the last one. Our home is in danger. We must pull together. Unless something is done now, we are all going to suffer and, presumably, die horrible deaths. Vote for those who will make the right choices about the impending existential threat because all of us are at risk. Failing to unite in November (election) will only make things worse.
Unfortunately, you did not spell out this apocalyptic, world-ending scenario, but left it up to the reader to make assumptions about what you mean. In this case, it appears to me that you are discussing the arguably divisive, unproven topic of “climate change” and its attendant ills–whatever they might be.
You say that this is a non-partisan issue, but then try to make it all about politics. Which is it? And why is your opinion about this so much better than that of anyone who dares to dispute the “facts” about the issue? Why is it necessary for humanity to unite and act cooperatively according to your prescription, especially if someone else believes just as strongly in the opposite direction? Should force be used to make everyone “participate”? Would this not negate the spirit of cooperation which you extol? Are we doomed forever if the “winds of change” sweep the wrong person into office?
You mention a cultural shift, but never define what that should be. Instead, there is only the assumption that, unless this takes place, the world is a doomed place and the best we can hope for is to all pull together and work in the face of impending disaster to save ourselves. There is no plan developed which would give us direction to combat this supposed nightmare, except one–“Unite in November! Vote for the person(s) who will guide us safely out of the coming firestorm and lead us to some future idyllic Utopia.”
To be honest, I would like to see your version of this “cultural shift” spelled out plainly so that everyone can be certain of your intentions. Again, I must assume what you mean because you were not specific and I suspect that it would entail authoritarian, totalitarian government measures, which I will resist to the best of my ability. Please elaborate and “clear the smoke”.
Your thanks and gratitude resonate with me on the subject of the recent local fire, but you lost me when you ventured into a hypothetical morass about which there is no clear-cut reality nor solution. You should have quit while you were ahead.