On Monday the park near my house caught on fire. Unlike this recent park fire it most likely wasn't caused by a teenager setting a rubber duck on fire. Before Monday was through, my partner and I had received enough messages about the fire that "Did you know Iroquois Park is on fire?" had replaced "Is that your chicken?" as our favorite question to randomly ask one another.
With that sort of a fanfare I had to go for a #wednesdaywalk to see what all the fuss was about. With only the loosest of notions of where the fire was I set out to see the aftermath. It looked like I was in luck and they'd already updated the signs but sadly Burnt Knob wasn't the knob that burnt. The lure of a DO NOT ENTER sign distracted me and I ended up not following the arrows anyway.
It's been downright soggy around here lately, so news of the fire was a bit surprising. I guess anything is possible with 50 mph wind. As I took a random path the scenic route I realized we'd been lucky. Fuel load seems to be a concept with which the city parks department is not familiar. If it'd been just a hair less moist we'd've had a park size bonfire.
It's all good though, Big Brother's got his eye on things. Unfortunately, I was having trouble laying eyes on where the fire had been. The news article was a bit vague as to the location so I just wandered the grassy areas until I smelled smoke.
Took a little meandering back and forth before I was able to pick up the smell of smoke and then a bit more to pin down a direction.
The trail was nice but eventually had to leave it to continue zigzagging towards the fire. Stumbled upon a couple making out but they took no note of me and I did likewise.
Fire truck sign. Getting close now.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, THE GREAT IROQUOIS PARK FIRE of 2023!
Not impressed yet? Yeah, me neither.
But wait, there's more! I spy unburnt kindling. Pretty sure we were better at forest fires than this in middle school. Random question for anybody who used to be in boy scouts: Did your troop have a Firebug Award?
As I was writing this I had a disquieting thought. I was able to find the aftermath of this piddly little fire by smell alone two days after it was extinguished, can't imagine what it's like in East Palestine, Ohio, where they burned off all that vinyl chloride. Random side note: Did you know that 'new car smell' is just vinyl chloride offgassing?
Charcoal, fire's free gift for you! It's the gift that keeps on giving, mix it with some batshit and brimstone and you've got gunpowder! *Do Not Try This At Home
This has gone on longer than the fire did so that's probably enough slightly scorched trees. The fire department had trouble dealing with this since there's no hydrants nearby which says great things about what'll happen if this goes up under drier conditions.
So who has proper wildfire issues in their neck of the woods?
