The Yosemite Rim fire is burning 1000s of acres and hundreds of square miles of forest, threatening whole communities and causing many folks to evacuate. There is another side to the story however.
When there was a large fire on the south shore of the lake a couple of years ago, there was a story in the news in which they interviewed a young firefighter. He was standing on the edge of the fire line when a bear wandered out of the smokey woods and stood looking at him, rather stunned. The young man said something like, he looked so stunned and lost. And I didn’t know what to say to him. His home was gone and I had nothing to say.
All those acres close to Yosemite burned ~ home to bears, deer and thousands of tiny creatures like birds and chipmunks. Did they escape? If so, where did they go? Oh yes, there are other forests close by. But some how I keep remembering the firefighter’s story and his sadness at having nothing to say to the bear whose home was taken away.
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