by Dennis Nord
Santa Barbara
Fire Song in Three Parts
Dennis L. Nord
Copyright 2012 by Dennis L. Nord
This book is fiction with characters, names, places and incidents developed by the author or they are used fictitiously. Correspondence with or resemblance to actual events, locales or living or dead people is strictly unintended and coincidental.
Chapter 1. Black Belly Frog and the Fire
Fire crackled and lunged, brush was lit by the ground fire, which moved higher in bright orange and red flames jumping bush to bush. Black smoke billowed along the upward curve of the land.
Black Belly Frog hung upside down from his favorite limb enjoying the cool morning breeze. He never falls even while sleeping. His toes keep him well attached. His stubby nostrils twitched. He wasn’t really awake yet. He sneezed, once, twice and then three times! Now he was awake. One eye opened, then the other.
What’s that awful smell? He asked himself.
His eyes darted as he sniffed the air and began to cough part way through a yawn.
Yuck! What’s that? What’s that awful smell?
BB looked carefully through the leaves and branches of his tree. He expected the sun to come over the ridge.
With a start, he recognized the smell. Smoke! BB had smelled smoke from campfires and barbeques. But this was morning. What would be burning now?
He saw the sun coming over the mountain ridge. Rays of sunlight spread between the trees around him. He saw brown grass on the hillside and the green leaves of the oak tree and red leaves of the poison oak.
BB was wide-awake.
Where did the smoke come from?
Blue smoke curled into the air, brighter in the sunrays. The sun was oddly red and there was a black dot on its face. He jumped to the front porch of his home in one huge leap and opened the door.
“Mom! Dad! Smoke! Fire!”
BB hadn’t realized how afraid he was. His charge into the house brought everyone out of bed. BB’s dad followed by Mom and Argyle suddenly stood at the door.
“Look, smoke. There’s a fire!” BB said.
Dad pushed through the door and sniffed the air. He coughed, and sputtered a little and went back in.
“Grab anything you can carry. I’ll go up the tree and see where the smoke is coming from. Don’t leave until I come back!” Said Dad.
What to take? BB went to the room he shared with Argyle. He took out his baseball mitt from the drawer. He picked up his favorite trading card of the pitcher Freddy Frog Ferguson who plays first base for the Fresno Fly Catchers.
“What’re you taking Argyle?” BB asked his big brother.
Argyle was looking in his dresser.
“I had my best fly bait right here.” Said Argyle in frustration. “Can’t find it. Got my watch on my wrist and I got a family picture here under my arm.”
“Good idea,” said BB “I’ll get that picture off the table of our summer vacation at the swamp!”
BB’s mom came running through the door, arms loaded.
“Dad’s coming down. Are we ready?” Her voice quavered.
BB looked around the house and saw all the stuff they were leaving behind.
“Come on BB. Can’t carry it all. We gotta be ready,” said Mom as she handed him a box to carry. “I need these, hold on tight!”
BB was thinking especially of all the good food left behind. He knew it might be awhile before they got somewhere with good food. He hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet!
“Alright, I can see where it’s coming from. Good job! Letting us know about the fire. We’ve got enough time to make an escape in safety,” said Dad.
They made their way rapidly down the tree. Each of them looked through the thickening smoke and wondered if they’d see their tree with their house again.
“Is the fire going to burn down our house Dad?” Argyle asked.
“I hope not son! It’s too early to know, but we sure don’t want to wait here to see. If that fire keeps coming we could be too late. Nothing’s worth that risk with my family.” Dad sounded confident he was doing the right thing.
BB told me they saw other frog families making their escape from the fire that morning. Birds and animals were running and flying away. At their friend’s house they stopped to make sure everyone had awakened and knew about the fire. BB was the one who climbed up the tree. He hoped Red Leg and her family were already gone. He banged on her window when the door went unanswered. He was yelling her name as loud as he could.
“Red Leg! Red Leg!”
He hit the window again so hard it broke!
“Oh, oh!” He thought.
He was so excited he didn’t gage his strength and now he ruined the friend’s window.
He banged on the door and opened it without awaiting a reply. He told me everyone was gone.
The broken window wouldn’t matter much, especially if the house burns. Black Belly’s house looked like his. Stuff was missing but all the large items were sitting where they left them. BB shut the door thinking it might make things better somehow.
By this time BB told me that from the height of his friend’s porch he could see smoke rolling above the brush. He could see the bright dance of flames under the smoke even in full daylight. It was closer and much more scary.
He leaped to the ground to join his family, telling them, “No one home. Go, it’s getting closer!”
The thicker smoke made it hard to see the way and they worried about making their escape.
BB coughed and so did everyone else. Smoke stung his eyes and it was difficult to see. Burning embers falling from the trees stung their skin as they tried to stay ahead of the fire. They heard the popping and crackling racing just behind.
BB said, “I looked over my shoulder and the fire was racing right up behind me. I ran as fast as I could go!”
Suddenly they came over the hill. Everyone headed for the pond. On the other side they saw fire coming from that direction too. A large oak tree went up in flames with a blast of searing heat so hot their skin seemed ready to sizzle. Burning embers blew fiercely all about. One fell on BB’s back and burned his skin.
“Yeow! Get it off!” Yelled BB.
He leaped further than usual in his pain.
Dad flicked it with a quick movement. He didn’t stop to console BB. Trees and limbs were falling in the brush behind them and there was little time.
“Keep going son, quickly now! We’ll be safe over there,” said Dad. He pointed ahead. “Go for the pond and we’ll be out of the fire. Fast before it cuts us off!”
Black Belly told me, “You wanta be in the mud, that’s safest.”
BB’s family leapt into the pond and headed for the bottom. Breathing the air had been like being in a hot oven.
Frogs can hold their breath for a long, long time. Actually frogs breathe through their skin when they are in the water, so it’s not the same thing as humans holding their breath. Oxygen in the water goes directly through their skin to supply what they need. So the frogs were not worried about the smoke while they were in the pond. It couldn’t hurt them there.
BB said, “I saw the fire. It was orange and red, lighting up the sky over and around the pond. It came back again that night when it looked all watery and hot at the same time from in the pond.”
He thought the fire came back at least twice and heated the shallow pond to where Black Belly thought he was going to boil. There wasn’t anything he could do about that. The pond was not going to get any deeper from wishing.
Slipping deeper into the silt on the bottom of the pond, he hoped was enough. It was comforting to feel the cooler mud.
I didn’t t
hink I would like to wait out a fire in the mud at the bottom of a pond, but then I’m not a frog. I wonder what it’s like to take the oxygen you need from the water. BB couldn’t explain that to me except to say he never has to think about it. It just works for him like we breathe the air.
BB came out of the pond to see if they were safe. He saw black bushes and trees smoldering all around. Where they weren’t black, they were white with ash. Even the ground smoked, especially where ash was heaped. He assumed, correctly, that everything was still too hot for a little frog to venture out into the world and dove back to the bottom to wait. I’m not sure what he did while he waited, but he didn’t take a book to read.
Later he surfaced and looked around. There was no smoke nearby. Perhaps it would be safe to explore the ground? Maybe just to see what happened?
BB cruised across the pond noticing how some areas were still smoking and ash blew in the breeze. At the shore, BB decided the ground looked scary and unfamiliar. He was staying in the water! Just then a huge splash rocked him out of the water upside down. He turned and saw a second wave coming. He dove and the wave went overhead. When he came up he saw a large tree had fallen in the pond, an old one weakened by the fire. Now it was floating and steaming where it was still burning. The green leaves were gone, burned to a crisp. Nothing seemed safe above the water line.
Staying in the pond was the best idea. While people would be most uncomfortable hanging out in a pond, frogs are quite happy especially with water bugs and insects to eat. While I don’t care to lie in wet, slimy mud eating bugs, frogs seem to love it.
After a couple of days waiting in the pond, BB’s family made a short exploration trip to see what was happening in the ash all around them. What they found was surprising. Ash covered the ground for miles. You could tell where frogs were hopping by the little clouds along their way. “It was like watching little gray explosions going off,” BB said.
The standing trees and bushes were black with white fluffy piles at their bases. Fortunately the frogs still found bugs to eat. They didn’t go hungry.
Dad took them back to the pond after a short exploration.
“There’s not much to see besides the burned out area. I think it’s better to stick near the pond. I’ll make a longer trip. I’ll go see if our house is still standing.”
With that he hopped off over the burnt land towards home. BB thought he would like to look around too, even though he didn’t get to go with Dad. He talked Argyle into taking a little hop/hike with him.
“We’ll just go out where we can see what burned. Maybe there will be a tree to climb for a better view,” said BB to Argyle.
The brothers set out on their hike. They were already a little hungry as there were fewer bugs than usual and no pantry for snacks like there always was at home. They figured on flying treats as there were a few more bugs every day. Nothing looked as it had. The land was different without all the plants.
“It was like a human without his hair, kinda bald.” That’s what BB told me. Of course humans don’t usually have ashes on their heads even if they are bald, so the similarity didn’t quite fit.
“We better not go far,” said Argyle, “we might get lost out here. It sure doesn’t look like it used to. Between the fire burning the plants and bulldozed fire breaks, nothing is the same.”
Argyle was right, the land was confusing BB told me. The frog boys kept on for a while further. They thought they might see better from the cliff near their pond. They came to a burned-out bush BB thought he could climb for a better view. He tried, but an upper branch broke just as he started to put his tiny weight on it. Burned wood is not as strong as it looks. Later they found a little cluster of unburned oak trees. BB climbed the one nearest the edge of the mountain for the best and longest view. What he saw from there was surprising. Argyle was in the tree with him.
“We can’t see beyond where the fire burned. There’s another bunch of trees that didn’t burn, like here, but everything else did,” said BB to Argyle.
“It looks like the whole world burned in that fire,” said Argyle in reply.
They climbed around the tree to the other side where they could see up hill. What they saw was surprising. There was a fan shape where the fire burned away from a ring of rocks. Above that it was unburned all the way to the upper mountain road.
I know that’s what happens when a fire starts. It begins small at the source, growing wider and wider. I figured the big fire that burned out BB’s family and many human homes came from someone being careless with a campfire. Probably they tried to put it out, but didn’t do a complete job. In fact, last year I found a campfire just like that. It was in a cave over at Lizard’s Mouth. That’s an area where I go boulder hopping with BB sometimes. Fires smolder, maybe for days. Then the wind comes up, and it starts the fire again. It gets pushed out into the grasses and bush and suddenly there’s a huge fire no one can stop!
Late that evening BB’s dad came home from looking for their home in their tree.
“Well, its not there,” said Dad. He looked sad. “I think I found where our tree fell down, but there was nothing left of our little house even though I looked everywhere. I guess it just burned clear up or maybe the tree fell on it.”
BB and his family sat glumly on a lily pad in the pond as they considered the news. They all expected it to be gone, but I don’t know if any of them cried. Maybe frogs don’t cry, I don’t know.
Dad said, “We’ll find another tree and start a new home. I can make a better one anyway. We’ll have a view we like with all the clearing after the fire. I want to be nearer the pond for safety too.”
They were all in favor of safety and a better house. Frogs build their tree houses with what they have in the woods. Therefore they don’t have to wait for building material to arrive on a truck to start building.
“It won’t take long,” Dad said.
BB told his dad about what they saw from the tree they climbed.
“It looked as though everything everywhere had burned,” he told his parents.
“And we saw maybe where the fire started,” said Argyle.
Dad listened to the story of what they found. Then he said, “Sounds about right. As frogs we often lose our homes because of humans. They probably don’t even know what they’re doing to us when they build roads and houses right where we live. No one asks us if it’s ok. Then they do something like this and burn out our homes.”
He was just stating that’s the way it is since no one wants to listen to a frog. He didn’t really blame anyone and he was ready to move on with his life.
Later when I talked to BB I confirmed what he thought about the fire. It probably did start with the campfire.
“If there was a fan-shape burn coming from that fire ring then that’s very likely where it started,” I told him. “I discovered another fire a long time ago just like that, started from a cigar. Almost nothing was burned around the cigar, but just like the camp fire ring, the fire fanned out from there. The butt was still there on the ground unburned!”
“That was good detective work, BB. Not many people figure out where a fire starts,” I said. “Good for you.”
BB said, “Well it didn’t help our house any. It’s still gone and we still have to build our own new house. Maybe people should be a lot more careful with their campfires!”
I had to agree with that. I offered to haul material for BB’s new house as I can carry much more than the whole family of frogs. I guess next week we’ll get started.
Chapter 2. Gel’s Ants
Lines of ants rushed out twin holes in the ground. Gel turned her head and saw she was standing at a third. Ants were overrunning her boot. She stepped back and brushed them off. Some latched onto her hand as she did. A couple of quick pinches made her look at the back of her hand. She smiled to herself as she inspected a couple of ants running freely along her arm as she held it up for inspection. Such improbable little critters she thought to herself. No noi
se, lots of action and always something to do and no fear.
Harvester Ants. She knew they were working hard this time of year. There were tiny bits of flowers strewn everywhere on the ground around the nest. It made a light pink carpet nearly three feet around the holes with buckwheat seed husks at the furthest edge. Of course decoration was not the purpose. The three debris piles covered several square feet. Everywhere, ants scurried, some carried food into the gaping holes and others, moving debris out. A soundless world, the ants were undeterred by Gel’s giant presence unless her approach was too close. Then several dozens rushed to attack. The size differential was of no consequence, and never figured in the decision to defend the nest.
Digging into the debris pile with the pencil she dug deep. She hit the earth at about three inches. Rich, dark soil turned out over the matted debris on both sides the yellow probe.
At soil level, Gel noticed it was a little moist despite hot sun and dry weather. She brought some of the debris up to eye level for inspection. It was hard to say if it were tiny flower petals or seed chaff. The soft material was matted from thousands of ant feet, gravity and rain. Later, Gel would learn online, the pile was also known as a midden, a dump with ruined seeds, chaff that was inedible, and whatever the ants didn’t want inside. It also cooled the nest when it was hot, maybe kept it warmer when it was cold and moister than the surrounding soil. Later, it would help develop soil for the next crop to grow.
Gel was studying ants, her chosen science topic for fall. It was a great topic as it allowed her to go where she wanted with a ready excuse to prowl unlikely places. If someone asked why she was in a field outside town, she would reply she was looking for harvester ants. If she found something interesting to investigate in a vacant lot she explained she was inspecting colonies of invasive Argentine ants. Sometimes surprised adults began looking for ants with her, or pointing where they recalled seeing others. So far she hadn’t seen any that seemed to be Argentine ants, but she learned much about her
neighborhood.
Since learning about ants and the fact that they might be found nearly anywhere, she was more intrigued by them than she had expected. Especially interesting was the fact that horned toads rely on harvester ants for 90% or more of their food supply. No more harvester ants; no more horned toads. Argentine ants were said, in the research, to be displacing harvesters and making the going tough for horned toads as they would not dine on them. She intended to try eating some of each to compare. Maybe that would tell her about horned toads’ taste preferences.