Of Flashes, Forests, and Flame

The sky was drowning in a viscous blood-orange haze that singed every cilium in my trachea every time I choked down a breath. It seems like daytime has finally hit, the sunlight imposing its rays, bludgeoning and battering the smoke to allow the smallest modicum of visibility. I'd be grateful for it if it weren't for the increase in temperature. I know I'll be severely dehydrated by the end of the day from physical exertion and the intensity of the flames burning only kilometers away from me.

They say a man's life can change in a flash. I've never given much thought to it, nor did I when the thunder rolled over my decaying research out-post. Nor did I think about how quickly it changed when in the middle of the night I fumbled to fill my rucksack with essentials and abandoned camp, running due south to escape the furnace that had erupted so closely.

Yesterday I was carefully studying the quiet ecology that stretches and spatters the ground far below the canopy of Douglas firs. There's been a longstanding drought in the region where the sensitive creatures, plants, and fungi that are usually sheltered and protected by their benevolent kings and queens of conifers have been starting to show signs of decline. As I march through the woods, I take mental notes of the desiccation of mosses that leave the faintest trace of karst formations exposed.

Today I am being chased by the demons of hell, through a land that was once lush green with ferns but now the skeletons of decaying logs and jagged rocks create a hellish obstacle course through which I have to maneuver to outrun the reaper himself. I can hear the crackling laughter of the fire behind me, mocking me, telling me I'll never escape its thousands of tongues.

I'm constantly out of breath. I can feel each gulp of atmospheric soot and ash carving and chiseling my lungs. I'm running, crawling and climbing. I'm fucking bouldering my way through the forest. Alison Hargreaves is probably rolling in her grave watching me, laughing. I knew that when UVic sent me to the coast to study the long lasting effects of drought on the Salish Douglas fir ecosystems that forest fires were a threat. Obviously. But like anyone, it couldn't happen to me.

There's a crashing somewhere behind me. I startle as panic stricken deer narrowly dodge, bound, and leap around me, racing for the safety of the cool clear water harboured in an inlet just a few clicks south. According to the map. According to the map that, when I'd briefly stopped to take stock of the gear I'd hastily packed, I realized was not in fact packed, but was probably now part of the ashen detritus I'm inhaling. In an ironic turn of events, I did happen to grab the satellite phone. It's ironic because it's dead, just like I'm about to be if I don't move faster than the flames that follow.

I hear a low gravelly sound coming from directly behind me, I think it's probably more deer attempting escape, but when I glance over my shoulder, I stand stock still and slowly turn about face. I can feel my adrenals above my kidneys cramping and squeezing as they work to release epinephrine. Staring at me with maw wide open in a warning roar is a grizzly quickly closing the safe distance between us. His monstrous frame towers over me and every piece of Bear Aware training I've ever had exits my brain and I turn and RUN.

For whatever reason, Mary's words from last night echo through my mind, "That's right, run! Run away you fucking coward, you always do!" My mouth is full of ash, dry, but every muscle in my body is lubricated by the hormones of my sympathetic nervous system, and for a split second I can't help but wonder if this is a Tuesday for Tom Cruise, but amid my split second loss of concentration my foot falters and slips into a crevice of a mature karst. The bear is bewildered by my sudden near disappearing act but doesn't pursue me. Even he knows I'm stuck. He knows these woods; he goes around and leaves me for the predatory inferno.

Fucking great. Another rush of panic floods my system as I try to wriggle my out leg out, but the harder I struggle the deeper I sink, my free leg sitting at an awkward angle next to me. Mary was right. I should never have accepted this assignment. I should never have run away from my problems. I should never have cheated on her.

The air in the forest gets remarkably hotter and I can see the threatening tongues of retribution in the not so far distance. The sky grows darker with the advancing smoke. And like the burning forest around me, a molten feeling slides to the pit of my stomach when I realize that I'm going to die here. I'm going to die in the Douglas Fir ecosystem I love more than my wife. Unable to call for help on my dead satellite phone that I'd killed in a useless fight with Mary yesterday. Not even a shred of sunlight could penetrate the smog around me to charge its solar panel.

A slick feeling of hopelessness peels through me. A pang of desperation. The self-gratifying thought that Mary will be better off without me. I try to muster up grandiose feelings of nobility, as if I were doing her a favour, as if all my sins are washed away in my baptism of fire. The pain of a thousand licks confronts me. Immobilized by rock and fear, the fire creeps up around me consuming the long desiccated vegetation until it reaches my skin. I watch as it starts to bubble and crack, grease spitting and fresh black plumes curling into the air. I hear a distant scream that tells me my punishment is worthy.