This time of year, the question that always seems to be the first uttered with friends over a cup of coffee or stopping to chat on the street, is the annual lament, “Where did the summer go?” Immediately answered by “I don’t know where the summer went.” But, this year, I do know. I know where the summer went. The answer is “Up in smoke.”
I was in Yellowstone for a good piece of the Summer of ’88, and while Yellowstone was indeed burning bigtime, I don’t remember that the rest of the world was also on fire, as well as draped under a thick veil of choking, burning, endless smoke. In fact, in the summer of 2012, the entire American West has more or less been burning, and not just during the fire season that traditionally begins on August 1 and lays down with the first autumn rains. This year, California and New Mexico and Arizona lit up much earlier, soon followed by Colorado. By the 2012 calendar standards of wildfire, Montana was late to the party, even though the first fires began here in June. But the smoke that has caused the most issues in this part of Montana is actually from a massive wildlife on the Idaho/Montana border that shows absolutely no interest in abating until winter arrives with something akin to a Biblical blizzard. And I don’t mean to imply that Montana hasn’t been conflagrating right up there along with the Best of the West. Record acreage; fires with names that comprise a litany of spectacular Montana landscapes – Pine Creek, Millie, Delphia, Wall Creek, Moose Mountain, Blacktail, Sawtooth, Rosebud, 19 Mile, Goblin Gulch, Salamander – well, you get the idea. Fire. Smoke. A lot of it. And in Montana, some of the worst devastation has been on the Reservations. Like they needed more trouble. Across the West, not just homes and outbuildings lost, but also millions of acres of pasture which is forcing the early sale of livestock because there is now nothing left to eat. Hay prices are sky high, and in Colorado, hay theft is the current crime du jour. Ranchers are contemplating selling out. Lives have literally been changed forever. No rain in the forecast; no clear skies on the horizon.
