Blazing Saddles-Pedaling Past Wild Fires 05/17/2009
The spring of my freshman year in high school, my friend Luke and I accidentally started a small forest fire. Like many teenage boys in Maine, we were victims of that innate male curiosity for playing with fire that permeates rural communities.
The fodder for the flame was mathematics: algebra tests with grades we desired to forever conceal from our parent’s displeased eyes. We decided to burn the exams. One afternoon, Luke and I stole away into the woods near our high school in Blue Hill to destroy our academic burden.
We arrived at a small meadow flanked by saplings. Lacking sufficient time to design a fire pit, and believing we could stamp the flames out as they spread, creating a ring of burnt ground to contain the fire, we carried out our naïveact of rebellion. To our dismay, stepping on the spreading flames only made them grow stronger. Suddenly, the wind picked up,spreading the blaze to a tall stand of dry grass from the previous summer. The flames reduced the dry flora to cinders in seconds.
The strengthening flames cast our quivering faces in an orange glow. We had created something beyond our control. Panic stricken, we ran through the woods and knocked on the door of the first house we came to.
“We started a fire and we can’t put it out! Call the Fire Department! Please!” I said, adrenaline pumping, to the old lady who arrived at the door. My head turned back and forth as if on a slinky, painfully watching the lady dial the local Fire Department on a slowrotary phone, then turning to observe smoke from the woods undulating into the sky.
Putting out the fire was easy work for the trained professionals who arrived shortly. But Luke and I later faced the wrath of our parents and forty hours of community service.
Fires, caused by nature and humans, are an ever present force during the cusp of spring. Conditions can be so dry, that fires can actually burn the roots of plants and spread underground. Stamping on a fire can make it grow stronger.
Over ten years after learning this truth, I am now exploring more creative avenues of thrill seeking. My college friend Ellery and I are riding bicycles across Eurasia, currently following the federal highway across eastern Russia just twenty miles from the Chinese border. As the winter snows here melt, they uncover an abundance of dry plants, the perfect tinder for wildfires. In my home of Maine, spring is a time characterized by brush fires in the yard or burning blueberry fields. In rural Russia, the situation is far different and more extreme.
The fodder for the flame was mathematics: algebra tests with grades we desired to forever conceal from our parent’s displeased eyes. We decided to burn the exams. One afternoon, Luke and I stole away into the woods near our high school in Blue Hill to destroy our academic burden.
We arrived at a small meadow flanked by saplings. Lacking sufficient time to design a fire pit, and believing we could stamp the flames out as they spread, creating a ring of burnt ground to contain the fire, we carried out our naïveact of rebellion. To our dismay, stepping on the spreading flames only made them grow stronger. Suddenly, the wind picked up,spreading the blaze to a tall stand of dry grass from the previous summer. The flames reduced the dry flora to cinders in seconds.
The strengthening flames cast our quivering faces in an orange glow. We had created something beyond our control. Panic stricken, we ran through the woods and knocked on the door of the first house we came to.
“We started a fire and we can’t put it out! Call the Fire Department! Please!” I said, adrenaline pumping, to the old lady who arrived at the door. My head turned back and forth as if on a slinky, painfully watching the lady dial the local Fire Department on a slowrotary phone, then turning to observe smoke from the woods undulating into the sky.
Putting out the fire was easy work for the trained professionals who arrived shortly. But Luke and I later faced the wrath of our parents and forty hours of community service.
Fires, caused by nature and humans, are an ever present force during the cusp of spring. Conditions can be so dry, that fires can actually burn the roots of plants and spread underground. Stamping on a fire can make it grow stronger.
Over ten years after learning this truth, I am now exploring more creative avenues of thrill seeking. My college friend Ellery and I are riding bicycles across Eurasia, currently following the federal highway across eastern Russia just twenty miles from the Chinese border. As the winter snows here melt, they uncover an abundance of dry plants, the perfect tinder for wildfires. In my home of Maine, spring is a time characterized by brush fires in the yard or burning blueberry fields. In rural Russia, the situation is far different and more extreme.
Wild Fires Burn Near the Russian-Chinese Border, Green Grass Sprouts in the Foreground After a Previous Roadside Blaze
Just two days into our trip, we came to a halt on our bicycles, staring at a fire burning by the roadside. The blaze had even ignited an abandoned tire in the ditch. Black smoke billowed over the highway.
‘Is this okay? Should we call somebody?’ I wondered.
An unconcerned man pushing a cart by the roadside and an influx of cars passing through the smoke seemed to indicate this was normal.
Russians seem to have a far more relaxed attitude towards fire than we do in America, which, in part, is shaped by the landscape. During a visit to Saint Petersburg in college, a man once told my cycling partner Ellery, “Russia is nothing but swamp and birch forest.” This statement holds a great deal of truth. Outside of the mountains, the landscape is almost identical: low-lying wetlands are interspersed with rolling hills which appear against the horizon like archipelagos covered in birch forest. The abundance of wetlands means raging fires often burn out quickly here.
The presence of fire in Russia is not merely a rural phenomenon. Once, passing through the small city of Spask, we saw what resembled several small camp fires burning in a park. Young men stood beside them warming themselves and drinking beer.
‘Is this okay? Should we call somebody?’ I wondered.
An unconcerned man pushing a cart by the roadside and an influx of cars passing through the smoke seemed to indicate this was normal.
Russians seem to have a far more relaxed attitude towards fire than we do in America, which, in part, is shaped by the landscape. During a visit to Saint Petersburg in college, a man once told my cycling partner Ellery, “Russia is nothing but swamp and birch forest.” This statement holds a great deal of truth. Outside of the mountains, the landscape is almost identical: low-lying wetlands are interspersed with rolling hills which appear against the horizon like archipelagos covered in birch forest. The abundance of wetlands means raging fires often burn out quickly here.
The presence of fire in Russia is not merely a rural phenomenon. Once, passing through the small city of Spask, we saw what resembled several small camp fires burning in a park. Young men stood beside them warming themselves and drinking beer.
Fire Burns Outside of the Small City of Spask
Russians can be alarmingly easygoing; the ubiquitous presence of fire here is evidence of this mentality. Many young males, especially in small villages, will shun any sense of practicality or responsibility to start a party or have a good time.
“Do you drink?” Several young men ask Ellery and I as we stopped in a small village for food one Sunday afternoon.
“Sometimes,” I reply, afraid they will insist we indulge in unwanted debaucheriesif I answer in the affirmative.
“Then let’s go!” they exclaim opening a bottle of beer.
I politely inform them we must push on to the next town. Before we leave, they ask us how old we are.
“We are both 26,” I reply.
As the conversation progresses, we surprise each other; they are just as bewildered to discover that I do not have a family yet, while I remain as amazed to find that they have children, and are carelessly getting inebriated in the early afternoon. Unlike many American youths, who take time to pursue careers before becoming parents, these options are not available to many young people who inhabit small villages in the Russian Far East. Many begin having families in their early twenties.
“Do you drink?” Several young men ask Ellery and I as we stopped in a small village for food one Sunday afternoon.
“Sometimes,” I reply, afraid they will insist we indulge in unwanted debaucheriesif I answer in the affirmative.
“Then let’s go!” they exclaim opening a bottle of beer.
I politely inform them we must push on to the next town. Before we leave, they ask us how old we are.
“We are both 26,” I reply.
As the conversation progresses, we surprise each other; they are just as bewildered to discover that I do not have a family yet, while I remain as amazed to find that they have children, and are carelessly getting inebriated in the early afternoon. Unlike many American youths, who take time to pursue careers before becoming parents, these options are not available to many young people who inhabit small villages in the Russian Far East. Many begin having families in their early twenties.
No Need to Panic: A Hillside Burns in the Distance
The fires which ravage the countryside this time of year seem to follow the same behavior as rural Russians; their action can be chaotic and destructive, while at the same time creating new life. Although fire leaves charred earth in its path, it destroys the seeds of weeds, opens the earth to sunlight, and encourages new growth. Just days after a burn, green grass and flowers sprout from the soot. The acceleration of spring which wild fires bring to Russia must be a welcome fact in a country where the first frost can arrive in August.
Now, as I round a corner on my bicycle and see a blazing hillside, I think nothing of it. I am as unconcerned as the group of Russian men I pass by fishing in a small marsh and draining bottles of beer. My instinct to call the local Fire Department each time I see a blaze has disappeared. I recall the small fire my friend Luke and I started years ago. If we had been Russian boys, we probably would have left the fire alone, free of consequences, worries, or fear.
One afternoon, I habitually hold my breath before riding through a cloud of smoke emanating from a particularly large nearby fire. The smoke is so thick, it darkens the sun. Eventually, I cough as time forces me to breathe in the acrid haze. That night, I lie in my tent and cough again momentarily before falling asleep. The action makes me smirk. I had believed a 10,000 mile bicycle trip would make me healthier; and I find myself developing a smoker’s cough.
Now, as I round a corner on my bicycle and see a blazing hillside, I think nothing of it. I am as unconcerned as the group of Russian men I pass by fishing in a small marsh and draining bottles of beer. My instinct to call the local Fire Department each time I see a blaze has disappeared. I recall the small fire my friend Luke and I started years ago. If we had been Russian boys, we probably would have left the fire alone, free of consequences, worries, or fear.
One afternoon, I habitually hold my breath before riding through a cloud of smoke emanating from a particularly large nearby fire. The smoke is so thick, it darkens the sun. Eventually, I cough as time forces me to breathe in the acrid haze. That night, I lie in my tent and cough again momentarily before falling asleep. The action makes me smirk. I had believed a 10,000 mile bicycle trip would make me healthier; and I find myself developing a smoker’s cough.
Lackadaisically Pragmatic: Young Russian Men Promote Responsibility One Minute, Binge Drinking the Next
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