Santa Barbara Fire Song in Three Parts

by Dennis Nord

  Ants were an excuse she used to poke around, snooping. She looked at a few anthills and ant holes before this and considered asking for an ant farm one time. Maybe that was for a birthday. Now she was the ant detective. She laughed at the thought. It kept her busy, especially on vacation while her parents were back home going to court all the time because they were both attorneys.

  “What secrets can I learn from following ants around?” she asked herself. She soon found that ideas and questions were better company than trying to draw her parents into conversations.

  She reached down and scooped a little sample of ant debris from the midden into a small pill bottle she kept in her pack for evidence. Her mom often discarded the bottles that were perfect for Gel’s hobby, sleuthing.

  Might as well see what they’re putting in the midden.

  With a magnifying glass, a microscope and some help, she would see more detail. She labeled the container: Harvester Ant Midden, West Camino Cielo Road: 3:45 PM and she put in the date.

  Might as well keep a detailed record. Maybe it will turn out to be important.

  Keeping detailed records became a habit years ago. Sometimes she solved interesting mysteries and problems because of the facts she recorded. It was what she did well and she got the idea from seeing the notes her attorney parents made evenings in their home office. Now she was thinking it would apply to natural history and science research as well. That was simply another type of investigation. Some mysteries had written solutions she found online or in books, others were still to be researched and tracked to an answer. That’s what she was pursuing now.

  She thought her friends would think this quite an unusual vacation to be out picking along a mountain road looking at anthill debris.

  Well, unusual for them!”

  She walked to the other side of the road and looked out over the ocean, her vision settling on the islands, dimly visible through the cloud. There was a lazy, cold fog drifting, so sun alternated with shadow. The dank smell of the dead forest fire wafted on the breeze. The fire raged a few weeks back. She was visiting her aunt for a few days on a holiday while her parents remained at home working. She often chose opportunities to visit Aunt Ginny. Virginia told her the fire story the night she arrived. She vacated her little cabin in the chaparral when the smoke billowed over the hill last summer. Everyone along her road left for a few days while the fire roared across the mountain. Gel heard about it from Mom who talked to Aunt Ginny. She saw it on TV where it was impressively scary. Photos of the planes dropping the red retardant near houses she recognized made it seem that much more real. She wondered how bad it was before Aunt Ginny fled the mountain.

  I wouldn’t wait at all. I hate that smoke and the idea of burning to death!

  ~~~

  A Forest Service notice posted beside the road indicated 11,500 acres went up in smoke as well as several homes. The burn area was closed to entry so the hydro-mulch dropped by the planes and chopper would not be disturbed. Feet dragging through the mulch would break it down and allow for erosion, so the notice said. The Forest was concerned about keeping the mulch in place to prevent or lessen the effect of flooding from the seasonal rains in the coming weeks.

  Gel looked around at burned-out trees next to the few remaining green ones. She imagined a wall of flame topped by smoke. Remembering the wildfire clips from last summer, it seemed possible to feel immense, solid heat from the front wave of fire.

  She shook herself back to the present and looked for more ants. She wondered how they survived. Sometimes the colonies were far apart. Maybe they just move in with the relatives she thought with a little laugh. No traffic disturbed her research. The portable electric road sign said yesterday the road was to be closed. So much damage was done by heavy fire equipment that the road needed repair. Gel saw the excavator and bulldozer tracks deep in the road surface. Even though the sign said the road was closed, no repair crew appeared. No one drove the road either. It was all hers.

  Aunt Ginny told her, “Switch on your cell phone, call me if you want me to pick you up or you need help.”

  Gel’s phone was always on. That was no problem. When she wasn’t talking, she was texting. She wondered what would come next. Maybe she would just spew video of her life full time. Her phone wouldn’t do video, but she knew some would. GPS for location? She knew that was available, but was not sure what she would do with that.

  Hi, Faith, I am at 134 degrees and 26 minutes longitude and 34 degrees and 9 minutes latitude, altitude of 2015 feet, Thought Gel, Yeah that would impress her! But really, what am I going to do with that?

  Her eyes were on the ground looking for ants, finding a colony now and then. She made notes about how they looked, whether the colony was active and how large the midden was. Some nests looked abandoned, but she couldn’t tell for sure. At least there were no ants running around. Maybe different species foraged different times of the day? She didn’t know. A note to check on time when colonies are busy went into her notes.

  Where did they go? Did they just all pick up and move to a new location? Did that happen when it got too hot? That’s like moving a town, she thought.

  Her bio teacher said when you find a thick midden the ants have been there a long time, maybe 20 years. She was measuring the middens for that reason. She always carried a little measuring tape. She was also trying to locate the colonies so when she came back she could find them again if she wanted.

  Oh, that GPS phone, that’s what you could use it for! Hmmm, GPS might be the next tech for me after all. It would make it easier to locate these guys again.

  She clicked a few pics of an ant midden documenting what she saw with her measuring tape laid across it and then again while she held it standing in the pile with one hand. She wrote notes about road markers near the nest that would help her find it again. She noticed this nest was next to a road reflector. Someone had put “#14” on the marker. She snapped a photo of the marker. That should make it easier to locate next time.

  Gel received a call from her friend, Bailey. After answering the usual questions about how she was and where she was, her friend asked why she was in Santa Barbara, or rather why she was on the mountain above town.

  “Well, right now, I’m looking for ant colonies. I just found a few and I’ve been taking photos and making notes on them.”

  “Pretty exciting Gel!” said her friend in a flat tone, “Don’t they have boys in Santa Barbara?”

  “These ants are really interesting, once you get to know them,” Gel countered. “Hey, what about your neighborhood? Would you be willing to look for ants around there for me?”

  Gel was famous for getting friends engaged in her projects. Bailey had looked up things for her or gone on location to look at a situation for Gel in the past. She was not eager to take up a new project. You could never tell if it was going to be safe after that one guy she was following turned and yelled at her.

  “Gel, ants? Are you kidding? Why would I do that?”

  “Well, it would help me out. You don’t have to do much. Just when you’re walking around, count the number of nests you see would ya? That’s all there is to it. You can just call me when you see ‘em so you don’t even have to make notes!”

  Gel made it sound easy. Not much involved. Just do what you do and kinda look for ants too.

  “You don’t even want to know what color they are?”

  “Only if you want to note that too. I just mainly wanta know if there’re any over in your neighborhood. I’ll come and look at ‘em if you got ‘em. Especially if there’s a circle of stuff around them.”

  “Whadda ya mean, a circle of stuff? Is this some crazy theory about crop circles? I mean with ants? Alien ants maybe?” asked Bailey starting to suspect she was getting roped into something time consuming.

  “Well, it’s pretty easy. See, ants, the ones I’m interested in, collect all kinds of little gravel and plants and they spread it around the opening. It’s easy to see if it’s t
here. That’s all. It’d be great if you do this for me. The more places I compare, the better my study will be,” said Gel with enthusiasm.

  “Maybe,” said Bailey in flat monotone. “I can’t imagine looking at ants when I could do so many other things for fun. When are you comin’ home so we can go to the mall?”

  Apparently Bailey didn’t notice Gel never went to the mall with her even when she was home. Gel didn’t think she needed to point that out.

  “I’ll be home next week. Gotta go to school, right? Right now I have a chance to find more harvesters, see what they’re doing.”

  “Harvesters?”

  “Yeah, the ants I am studying for my class project? They’re called harvesters ‘cause they harvest stuff to bring to their nests. Want me to send you a picture? Don’t you have to do something for science too?”

  “Yeah, my dad’s doing it. Don’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t ask my opinion and that’s fine with me!” She emphasized the “me.”

  “Hmmm, well, that’s OK, I guess,” said Gel.

  Gel wouldn’t want her dad to do her projects. As a lawyer, he wasn’t much into science or investigating things anyway. Well, other than some criminal he was defending. She decided that was better for both of them. She liked finding out new things.

  Bailey got a text message and another call so she cut Gel loose.

  Just as well, thought Gel, Bailey’s busy with her boy projects and looking good. Guess she likes me ‘cause I don’t compete on either one. Her mouth formed a crooked smile.

  Gel went back to looking at the ground for more ants. She walked out on one side of the road and back on the other. For some reason she had seen no ants on the fire side where she walked on her way from Ginny’s. Now she found several on the other. What was that about? Maybe the heat on that side drove them away. Perhaps they moved across the road? It went in her field book.

  She noticed where the fire came right up to the road. She often smelled burnt wood on the breeze. She looked over the burn to see what was growing. Many plants were unfamiliar to her, but she saw green shoots emerging from their bases with fire-blackened sticks reaching for the blue sky. Amazing so much life was back so soon.

  On the way back to Ginny’s, Gel noticed strong, fire smell where she saw no burned plants. She peered through the brush finding it intact as the fire skipped this flat. She decided it was OK to enter the brush as there was no new growth and no hydro-mulch to disturb. She pushed aside the brush, watching carefully for snags that might rip her clothing or snag her hair. She also watched for poison oak and rattlers. She had a bad case of p.o. last time she visited Aunt Ginny. That was enough of that for the rest of her life she figured remembering the red rash and the oozing skin.

  Hidden behind a small drop was a fire ring of blackened rocks. The area was an obvious camp with trodden ground and a seat of small logs on a couple of rocks. Bottles and cans were scattered around. What caught her attention was a blackened fan spreading from the fire ring. Gel looked closely after climbing over the drop. She saw, 20 feet away, another drop over tall rocks that descended another 15 feet. As she stood on the edge, she overlooked a large expanse. Everywhere below her were the blackened remains of the fire punctuated by green growth. As she stood there, her brain started connecting what she was seeing.

  What happens when a fire gets away from its point of origin? She was asking herself and snapping photos. Probably goes in just one direction. The direction the wind blows. Or maybe where there’s dry stuff to burn.

  She turned around to look at the fire ring again.

  Where it didn’t burn, there isn’t much to burn, probably wasn’t when this happened either.

  Her brain raced on as she walked back to inspect the ring.

  So, right here, she pointed to the place where a small area burned next to the fire ring, the fire moved out of the ring and got larger the further it went.

  She was looking back at the rock outcropping. She walked back to the edge of the rock cliff. There she could search along the top of the rocks.

  Hmmm, looks like this burned bush grew out over the rocks, so when it burned, it dropped burning embers, even a burning branch. All that’s left are stems where leaves musta been.

  She looked below the rocky cliff.

  Down there was grass, easy to ignite! Looks like this is the place the fire got started!

  She was suddenly excited she had discovered the starting place for the fire that burned out 10,000 acres and dozens of homes. She hadn’t heard what started the fire. All she heard was it might have been manmade. Now she thought she might have overlooked evidence. She looked up at the ridgeline with a smile.

  Where the fire really took off, below the ledge, no one could see the fire ring and from the road it wasn’t visible. She wondered what it looked like from the air. Maybe the ring and fan didn’t look significant. She was looking up as she contemplated the way it might look from the air. Well, it should be clear from the air. Maybe someone already knew about this and she just missed hearing it. She would ask Aunt Ginny what she knew.

  Looking out over the burn again, Gel could see the edge of a little pond not far away. It was interesting to see the brush was burned around the pond. The edge was turning green, probably from water seeping out from the pond, encouraging fresh grass to grow.

  Blue, green, then black, thought Gel intrigued by the contrast created by the burn.

  Back at the cabin, Aunt Ginny asked Gel about her walk.

  “No cars, pretty much like you guessed. Had the road to myself, so I’m sure that sign at the highway stopped the traffic.”

  “Aunt Ginny, I noticed a fire ring out there, just off the road. Anyway, it looked like the fire got away and burned into the brush. It might have been the place the fire started! Did you hear what caused the fire? Oh! And I have some pics I snapped.”

  Aunt Ginny looked at Gel as she thought about what Gel said. She turned her head to look at the photos on Gel’s phone.

  “I don’t recall hearing what caused the fire. I know when the fire was burning, there was speculation on the news that a person started it. I listened for a follow-up as I wanna know how it started. Usually there’s something in the papers or on the radio.”

  Ginny turned to her phone and called a couple of neighbors to see what they had heard. Each time she turned to Gel and told her there was no news about cause of the fire.

  “Ok Gel, time to call the fire department, or the Forest. They were both up here, County Fire and Forest fire fighters.”

  Ginny called the County Fire Department and asked if there were any news on the cause of the fire. Hearing none she paused a moment and then told them what Gel had told her.

  “Yes, my niece is visiting and she says she saw a fire ring that looks like it might be the start of the fire. She has pictures we looked at and I think she might be right. Where? Oh, well, just off West Camino Cielo past where all the homes are.”

  When she got off the phone, Aunt Ginny turned to Gel and said, “Now you’re in for it!” in a mischievous voice. “The Fire Department is sending up an investigator to talk to you.”

  “Sounds fun to me,” said Gel. “Maybe I can help them figure out what happened. This might be something new, or maybe not.”

  Late that night the investigator left Gel and Ginny after asking many questions and going out to the fire ring with them. The investigator took lots of notes and took her own photos of the fire ring. Through the whole thing, Gel felt like she couldn’t tell if the investigator thought this was where the fire started or not. She asked her before she left.

  “Well, I can’t be sure. I have to agree it is very suspicious. There hasn’t been anything else to go on. Since it’s several weeks it’s going to be hard to get much conclusive from the site, especially about who might have been there. I’ll have to ask you to stay out of the area. From here on it will be considered a crime scene and we’ll spend more time looking at everything. From what you said, you didn’t di
sturb or touch anything?”

  Gel confirmed the investigator’s question.

  “Well, be sure you don’t go back out there. We need to see what we can learn. Also, please don’t tell anyone what you found or about the location. The less interference, the better for us to nail this down.”

  After the investigator left, Aunt Ginny looked at Gel.

  “You certainly were well prepared. I don’t think she expected much from you. She was impressed even though she didn’t say it. Your observations were very complete. I think you might have given her the first lead they’ve had all these weeks. She was cautious, but I think you just solved the case!”

  “Well, that might be, but they still won’t know who was at fault,” said Gel. “All they have is where the fire started.”

  Gel was thinking about what it might take to get evidence to prove who started the fire. Maybe there would be fingerprints on the bottles and cans.

  “If it’s been weeks, probably nothing’s left.”

  She wondered if that would really be true. Maybe under the objects there might be a print? Maybe someone left a scrap of paper with an address, a name or something. She fairly ached to go back to see what was out there. She had thought about it at the time, but knew she had to leave it for the investigators. Now she just had to wait like everyone else.

  Chapter 3. Canyon Fire

  From the back stairway, it was possible to see the line of flames stretching across the blackness of the mountain ridge above her home. Staring down the street, she saw yellow flames engulfing trees and lapping at housetops. All the while, she carried things Mom said to take.

  “Why do we have to leave?” asked Rose’s little brother. He was tired and ready for bed when Mom made them start moving things to the SUV downstairs.

  “’Cause I love you and fires are wild and fast. Wind’s blowing towards us. Gotta be careful! Not much time! Hard to get away if we wait too long.”