Smokey the Bear: A Forest of Flames.

Lost in the Smoke.

The smoke followed him as he went away from the fire. He began to jog, now going six miles per hour rather than his usual four miles per hour walk. The sun was rising higher in the sky, the clouds were becoming more pure white and being blown away gently on the winds miles over head. They were also obscured not only by the branches of pines above with their green needles shading the forest floor casting  shadowy patterns upon the ground, but now also by semi-transparent blackish gray smoke drifting in with the increasing breeze.

The breeze was now three miles per hour and increasing slowly but noticeably enough. A light grey and whitish smoke appearing like a mist began to envelop the air around Smokey. Behind him and off to his left in the near distance the flames were growing, soon to his right would be  the same. Eventually all around him.  He increased his jog to seven miles per hour.

Ten minutes later the breeze was more strong now, the smoke more thick. From the ocean to the West, the winds were increasing and blowing the fire along now at six miles per hour. He started banking right, trying to avoid the smoke which filled his lungs and made him choke. This fire was spreading fast, after years of human intervention, fires were put out quickly before they could burn up all the dry and dead plant matter. All this collected and became a ticking time bomb waiting to ignite. And ignite it has.

His paws padded along the ground in a smooth rhythm, the dead materials sticking to his paws a moment then falling back down, over in this area trees with leaves grew and the forest floor was a mixture of shades of browns, tans, and yellowish colors from the sticks, bark, leaves, and what not. He inhaled, then exhaled as the stench pierced through his nostrils and into his brain with needle like fingers. The smell of smoke was disgusting to him, with the pine-needle scent it's not horribly unbearable, but now mixed with leaves it was noxious.

His mind fogged like the  grayish white air around him where streaks of black drifted in, flames off to his left were eating away at the leaf litter. He was feeling dizzy, disoriented, ill. He went further right towards cleaner air, but only slightly cleaner. The spinning blades of a helicopter beat the air not too far away, the humans within it were tracking the flames' direction and progress across the forest. Viewed from above, they saw canopies bursting in color, not that of autumn, but that of flames. The trees were being engulfed in it. The wildfires each year got worse and worse due to human intervention. Why didn't they realize this? The helicopter went through a patch of black smoke that was beat by the rotating blades. Looking down, they couldn't see Smokey as he ran from the blaze.

He looked around, he couldn't tell where he was. His eyes stung from the smoke and his nostrils and throat burned. He hadn't been in this deep except once; the fire that took his brother from him in his first year of life. He ran.