The Fire Demon

My heart is still pounding. The awesome power of the fire beast, the heat and the helplessness I felt was something truly frightening.

Some months ago, my friend and contractor Grant came over with his helper Ralph to do some work in the barn. The product of their labor was a pair of dead flat, laser-leveled new floors capable of supporting a Sherman tank or a 12 inch table saw, which ever came first. When they were done we had a pile of old timber that once comprised the tack room, or “granary” as Grant termed it.

The woody remains of the granary were put in the field, south of the born. Out here, you call it the born, not barn. And out here, your don’t call the trash company to take away stuff like a 25 foot long pile of old wood. If it’s big, you deal with it yourself. Like burn it.

This pile of dirty nail-filled old lumber had been awaiting a cold wet day for burning. I was content to wait until the grass was soaked, or covered in snow, or until a downpour.

That is, until friend and master farmer Dave noted that he had to plow the grass under soon if we’re going to put in oats come spring. “It has to rot, before we can we can plant oats.” said he. “Otherwise we’ll get too many weeds.”

One thing is connected to another thing it seems, in farming as in much of life. I’d asked Dave to plant wheat in our fallow fields. When I asked him if he’d like to have the wheat from our fields, in exchange for straw bales, he treated me to one of his sweet, patient smiles. “Hey buddy,” he grinned. “We can’t plant wheat here, not now. You’re way too late!”

Turns out that you have to plant wheat in the last days of autumn, well before winter comes. Who knew? By the time the hay farmer who’d been cutting the field, decided he didn’t want our second-class grass, it was too late.

I must have looked pretty depressed, because then Dave said, “But we could plant oats in the Spring!”

Oats are good. They’ll grow quickly, in Spring. And best of all it gets harvested in the form of grain and straw bales. Dave will get the fine oat grain for his animals, and I’ll get the straw bales.

I felt a twinge. Not a burst of delight at the prospect of getting a nearly unlimited supply of free straw bales, but of fear. Because of Randall.

Randall, my indomitable and highly knowledgeable next door neighbor, had once told me in great and deeply disparaging detail, about the former owners of our place, who had burned some wood in the very same field, in the same place as my pile, and nearly caused a forest fire.

“They lit a fire when they shouldn’t have. And that fire spread out into the field and ran like murder towards our fields. I wasn’t home so my wife Gladys got out the tractor and ran it around the field, turning over the earth to stop the fire. And she stopped it!”

Knowing how particular Randall is about his land, having his land cut up like that must have been similar to having one’s skin flayed.

I am afraid of Randall. The idea of burning up my own field, much less letting the fire get to his, just was too horrible to contemplate. I had decided that the only way to prevent this was to wait until a fire-proof (i.e. totally cold and wet) day came along.

Yet I had to fire that wood, since it was sitting in the middle of our (future) oat field.

Dave offered to cut a firebreak with his tractor and tiller, in a large circle surrounding the wood .

Out there, in the field, was a bonfire in the making, firebreak all around. I hemmed and hawed all morning, as the morning dew slowly dried off.

I decided to burn it. Checked to be sure there was no strong wind. Poured kerosene all over.

Applied match.

Within ten minutes, that old wood was burning like hell’s own fires transplanted onto the surface of the world.

Fire when released, is a terrifying, unstoppable monster. If you’ve never seen a big fire out of control, you haven’t seen the fire fear demon that lives deep in our psyches.

The heat was unbearable. It was so hot that wet grass five feet away ignited. The fire demon grew larger and hotter.

Licking, crawling, unstoppable flames burned the grass and moved quickly to the edge of Dave’s firebreak. I had no way to slow the unapproachable, frighteningly voracious fire. My heart was slamming like two sledgehammers. I was, to be honest. terrified...


... to be continued