Fire Storm

 I have never watched an episode of the successful TV series, Fire Country and never will. It's about a convict who joins a prison firefighting program to shorten his sentence. While the premise seems implausible, in the States prison inmates are often coopted into what amounts to slave labour for businesses and companies, so why not firefighting. The IMDB synopsis offers: "A huge untapped potential, but ruined by the high school level melodramatic dialogue. Viewers tune in for the fire action, not the silly high school drama."  I managed to figure that our from seeing the occasional trailer. I have to admit, though, that the developers have tapped in to the grim reality of the growing threat of wildfires in California, where it is set, as well as British Columbia where it is filmed.

A television series may be populated by good-looking heroes who save the day but we are watching in real time the terrible destruction wreaked by wildfires that can't be contained. Five of them are currently burning around and in Los Angeles, one of the largest cities in the United States and they are basically uncontained. As I write an estimated 10,000 buildings, mostly homes have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of residents are now fire refugees, and people have died. Schools, places of worship, shops and restaurants have been reduced to ashes. I have no doubt that the efforts of firefighters have been heroic but they quickly ran out of water and their efforts were no match for the fierce winds fanning the flames. The wealth or stardom of some of the residents in areas of LA did not insulate the residents from destruction. 

One of last year's celebrated books was John Vaillant's Fire Weather.One of the reviews called it "prescient" because it vividly addresses the almost incomprehensible scope and ferocity of wildfires and the previously unimaginable threat not only in remote areas but to towns and cities. 

Once again I saw an article using the phrase "biblical in proportions" to describe the devastation in California and once again I was mildly annoyed. The implication is that this is somehow related to a severe judgement by the Creator, akin to the flood in Genesis. Of course, in that story God promises never to punish humanity in this way again. There is no assurance in this covenant that humans won't be able to do this to themselves and there is little doubt that what is happening in terms of severe weather events is accelerated by climate change. No place is prepared for the enormity of these events and politicians are either deniers (the Orange Menace, PP) or unwilling to make changes that might annoy their constituents. So why blame God, even if it is a mindless use of a term? Granted the scenes from the fires do seem apocalyptic. 

We can pray for those who have experienced terrible loss and those who put themselves in harm's way to battle these fires. We can also pray that our leaders will step up and make heroic decisions for the sake of all creatures and the future of the planet.