The Creator's Tool (Part 5)

The Creator’s Tool (Part 5 of the storm-chaser saga):

Nature uses colossal mega-fires of great size and strength to drive biodiversity, but these behemoths also create dangerous winds and micro-bursts just like thunderstorms. The storm-chasers typically would be in control and excited about this phenomena, however today circumstances dictate they run rather than pursue.

Technologically “out-gunned” and blind to satellite imagery showing the progression of the heat, the progression of the fire, the magnitude of the blaze; the storm-chasers and their friend travel a road to nowhere, unless they make the right turn.

“My phone is not helping us, Rick,” Jessica complained about coverage but at least she had battery power; his was dead. “As soon as I get a bar of reception, I am going to call the sheriff or someone around here. The look of the sky has me worried!”

“You guys just stay on my tail; I think we need to go down to the bottom where this road intersects that one, and take a right,” Clay pointed, commanding. “We just need to get out of this area and we’ll be fine; don’t get all freaked on me.” Unlike Clay, Rick had nausea in his gut because he was not in control. This was a weather war he was losing, and he felt it deeply.

photo credit: Georgia

Firefighters extinguish 95% of wildfires each year before they get out of control, indeed only weather changes really affect the giant fires like those in Texas. Smoke sometimes billows up, making pyrocumulus clouds 40,000 feet high, reaching into the troposphere/stratosphere. Some experts contend that the ecological transformation due to huge wildfires is actually a good thing.

image: AP

The bright red, orange line of flames encircling Rick, Jessica, and Clay did the real snap, crackle, and pop that early morning in Liberty County. Smoke and heat seeped closer to their crossroads, reminding them of the gravity of their situation. This was not so much a natural disaster as a human disaster during an extreme natural disturbance.

After a few more zig-zags through the web of country roads, they started to become disoriented. Each turn in the maze routed them closer to disaster, as they generally moved westward into the worst section of the wildfire; by now engulfing hundreds of thousands of acres. Fire season in southwestern United States lasts 61% longer today than 25 years ago, and unfortunately 8-million more homes have been built in fire zones since 1970. This is sure to be a 10 million-acre fire season, Texas hit as hard as any state.

Stopping later on the shoulder of a farm-to-market road, the crew decided they were lost. “Gotta tell ya Rick, I don’t feel like we're going in the right direction, do you?” Jessica was closing down.

“It just keeps getting worse,” Rick answered back. “But I don’t know where to go either, I’m usually able to pull up something on my up-link, but we aren’t able to boot it right now. The way the winds swirl, I've no way to know which direction this is coming from! It feels like the heat is bearing down from all directions!” Rick said in anguish, “what the ?$#! should we do?” He asked the smoky sky.

(to be continued in Part VI... fiction ripped from the headlines)

©Mark H. Pillsbury (this is a work of fiction, any similarity to real or created characters of other type, either in print, TV or film, is merely a coincidence,
14 July 2011)