Drive - A Memoir 113th Installment
not
be saved. The fire had traveled around the entire U and the whole
thing blazed high into the night. This is when we saw the 'tornado of
fire' from the center of the U shape. The fire spun out and shot a
twenty foot wide flame funnel a hundred feet into the air. As we
watched we could feel the air blow against our backs as the fire
sucked in oxygen to feed the fire and exhausted the heat up the
funnel. I can’t think of any way to explain the intensity of this
fire. Think of the biggest fire you’ve ever seen and multiply it by
a hundred. It was then we saw the real tragedy. The feedlot corrals
went into the open end of the U-shaped hay stack, and we saw the
burnt cattle, black lumps in the fire light. Later, we learned about
fifty head of cattle had been burnt alive. We shook off the horror
and worked at saving anything that could burn. We carried away things
we could, and threw water on things we couldn’t move. Luck was with
us because there was water in the nearby irrigation ditch to fill our
buckets, wet our burlap bags and soak ourselves in the cool water.
The Rigby fire engine arrived about an hour late but did save the
ranch house, pumping water on the house, outbuildings, farm equipment
and vehicles.
We
were still working to save animals and buildings when some farm
ladies came around with trays of grape juice. I snagged a glass and
gulped it down. Maybe I drank it too fast, or it was the exhaustion,
or the smell, or the smoke, but my churning gut came up hard. I bent
over and retched over and over. (I never touched another drop of
grape juice!) Everyone worked throughout the night, and by day the
fire was smaller, but even with the warmth of the morning sun, the
fire seemed hotter. The mound of hay glowed and writhed like the
surface of the sun. The burnt cattle looked surreal without shape,
but we knew what they were. I happened across a burnt cat that I
guessed took a wrong turn and was overcome by the heat. The burning
farm now looked like a war zone. We had to leave in the morning, so
we could finish our chores.
Later,
the Old Man told us that the fire had burned for a week before they
could drag out the ash and cinder and completely put it out. They had
eventually set up irrigation sprinklers around the smoldering mass
and moved the water closer as they cooled the pile.
It
was the fall of that year, and the most difficult farm harvest work
was over. We had a little more time to hunt and play. Of course there
were still chores to do, taking care of the animals and doing the
milking.
This
is all we knew – hard work and hard play – to us it
500 more words tomorrow
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