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Burn, Baby, Burn Part 2
What self-imposed evacuation looks like to two foreigners
“Holy shit!” pronounced Mark. Smelling fire. Wiping away grimy grey blotches.
Flames were rocketing up toward the barely visible moon, licking away the dusk’s darkness.
“Wanna get closer? Wanna go see?” Mark asked. The splotch of terror wedged in my belly did not want to see. The rest of me did. Dangerously curious, the latter won.
Up the steep laneway we traipsed. In mere minutes humidity stained our t-shirts and settled into the crotch of our shorts. Less than a city block away hilltop vegetation was being greedily swallowed. Fueled by the dry season’s papery underbrush and parched grasses, the fire got higher. And closer.
“Do you think we should evacuate?” I asked. Surprisingly there was little more than a tinge of anxiety choking my words to a whisper. “In Canada, we’d evacuate.”
“Let’s ask the workers, the new couple down there, “ he suggested. Mirroring my calm.
When we asked the new guests, and the workers staying in nearby metal sheds, nobody but us seemed all that concerned. Shoulders were shrugged and they went back to scrolling their phones.
“Happens every year,” translated our millennial-aged neighbour, arms lazily…