Post 01645
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Friction fires are rare, but my old notebooks tell of numerous fires that were set by lightning. Before this fire, which was in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, had died out, a lightning-set fire in the mountains of central Colorado had attracted my attention with massive, magnificent smoke-clouds, which were two or three thousand feet above the mountain-tops. Though thirty miles distant, these clouds occasionally took on the bossy white splendor of big cumuli assembling for summer rain. I resolved to see the fire at close range.
Until burned territory was reached, I followed along sky-line ridges through changing conditions of clear sky, smoke, and falling ashes, ready for swift retreat down a slope in case the fire advanced under smoke cover and surprised me. The burn was entered at the first edge I reached. Millions of seared and blackened trees were standing steadfastly where they had died at their post. All twigs and leafage were burned away, but the majority of the trees still carried their larger limbs and patches of bark. In places only the tree-trunk, a fire-carved totem pole, remained. Whirlwinds of flame had moved, and in places every burnable thing on the surface was consumed, and even tree-roots were burned out two and three feet beneath the surface.
Though weirdly interesting, these ashen fields of desolation were not wholly lifeless. Here, as elsewhere, feasters came to banquet, and good fortune brought favorites to the scene of panic and death. Flocks of gorged magpies were about, and unwontedly bold coyotes, both filled and foraging, were frequently met with. At one place a half-dozen beaver were portaging round a tumble of charred tree-trunks that obstructed the brook-channel. Fire had destroyed the food-supply, and the beaver were seeking home and harvest in other scenes. A grizzly bear was wading their pond and feasting on the dead trout that floated on the surface. Two black bears, despite terrible threats from the grizzly, claimed all the fish that came within reach of the shore. They discreetly kept out of the pond.