Slaying The Dragon
Wildfire feels like a malevolent force
The mountain was breathing fire.
It was 2017, and the Milli Fire was raging to the southwest of Sisters, Oregon. My daughter and I drove down one night to town from our then-home in Crossroads in the forest West of town — where we were under an evacuation alert. We looked out over the Pole Creek Ranch pastures toward the looming edifice of Black Crater, where a burnout operation was underway to rob the fire of heavy fuels.
The mountain was inky black — and studded with orange flame that flared and receded as though pumped by a bellows.
“The Dragon is breathing fire,” I said to Ceili.
Fanciful, I know. But the fire truly looked like a living, breathing thing, a beast that was coming after our home with intent to destroy. Our recent Akawa Butte Fire looked like a dragon, too, this time intent on taking out the whole town.
