Away We Go: Wildfire
Contained within the name of this particular phenomenon is its principal characteristic; it is wild, it is fast and it is indiscriminate. There is little unaltered in its wake.
This southern forest is black around its tips. The edges of the saw palmettos are singed and the interior leaves have faded to brown. They are upright for now but will fall in the next rainstorm. There is a whiff of campfire peeling from the trees. Ash mixes with the white sand at my feet because there hasn't been enough time yet for the wind to scour the traces of soot.
It was a controlled burn. After spending enough time amongst the trees, you can recognize the defined edges that nature would never heed as precisely. Here on the coast there isn't as much acreage so you can see the perimeter they set.
Forest fire quickly and effectively levels a landscape. The most remarkable thing about it, however, is how fast that landscape turns around and begins to grow again.
Green is already poking up through the blackened earth. Is it time? The tiny shoots ask in a whisper. There is a good chance it is not time. These tender plants are on my mind during chilly nights. I wonder if they look back on their choices when the cold settles at night. Does a plant have regret? I would if I woke up covered in glittering frost.
As soon as I see one of these clusters of green I see many, they are covering the forest floor. There are no live pine needles to block their way. Look here, they say. We made it. We are ready. Let's do this. Let's ascend. Let's be the brightest thing here. Let's catch your eye. Let's survive and also thrive.
It is vulnerable but those shoots don't say, ugh, this is too hard. I don't wanna. Or consider what the other shoots are thinking of them. Or contemplate the ways they might get hurt so maybe this isn’t the greatest idea. Instead they reach their weak limbs up through the earth and angle for the sun. They survive both the cold and the dark when they aren't at their strongest. They certainly are not ready for this but do it anyway.
A forest can be flattened in moments. A forest regrows in handfuls of days. A forest matures in dozens of years. It steadily builds upward and that is what it does.
No matter how long it takes, it will never be the same. It will contain similar organisms but the fire wiped clean the slate. If it's a Buddhist forest, this is one of its afterlives. It could come back as anything but contains parts of what it once was. Forest succession is brave and it is complex. It is a cycle. The next fire will be different. The next regrowth will change its composition again.
Here in the almost immediate aftermath, there is black and green. What is left is the living peeking through the dead. Nourished by it. To call it a cycle is too simple; there is dependence. It is counting on death.
Life will come to an end. What is left is urgently required for whatever may come next.
Inspired by events at Topsail Hill Preserve, Florida.