What the smoke reveals
How wildfire smoke cuts through the myth of separateness and reveals the true nature of grief
I just got home to my mountain abode after a few weeks away when the notification came through my phone – nearby wildfire reported. Most other years, I’m on high alert during this season. But this year, after such a snowy winter, and then a hurricane that dumped so much rain here a month ago, I’d let my guard down.
The anxiety hits me immediately. I start looking to the sky to see if there’s any presence of smoke. I refresh the Watch Duty app every few minutes, anxiously tracking every movement, my mind wandering to worst case scenarios, evacuation warnings, an announcement from Riverside Co CalFIRE, etc. As they do so often, local fire personnel manage to put it out it before it can spread much — for their labor, I am so grateful. For they tend again and again to a mess of our own making.
I moved here after the last major fire in 2018, where flames threatened the town's very edges, leaving less than an hour for evacuation. This place has always been prone to fires, exacerbated by a rapidly warming region and extreme weather patterns caused by CO2 emissions. Increasingly, many of us have been thinking about and fearing for fire-prone places like California mountain towns, and for good reason. But a new reality has started to sink in for people across the country that the danger is not just where the flames are, but also wherever the smoke may travel.
Smoke knows no borders; it travels far and wide, causing severe health issues for those exposed to it. Fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, infiltrates our lungs, leading to illnesses, shortness of breath, and worsening heart disease and asthma. Though it’s only beginning to be studied, the mental and emotional impacts are equally harmful, from fear of safety and going outside to the fear of the end of the world. And per usual, those who are the most vulnerable, most at risk, and least provided safe shelter bear the worst impacts.
Though amidst the pain and suffering, I find a strange appreciation for what the smoke reveals. The smoke makes so clear (oooh) something that many of us have such a hard time with — that everything is interconnected.
The untamable travels of wildfire smoke remind us that there is no separateness. That borders are just ideas backed by human-scale infrastructure. That failing policies in one place yield crises in other places. That loss, all loss, is so connected. That we’re all part of each and every loss that’s happening on earth. That we are so not alone.
Grief is like the wildfire smoke – you may think you’ve shielded yourself from the flames, but the smoke will find you. It will move in thick, it will change directions, and eventually it will clear. Even after the fire is extinguished, the smoke doesn’t immediately go away. The residuals of loss linger and spread, with no guarantee of exactly where it will lead – just wherever the winds may take it. Until the land is healed, there will be more and worsening fires. Will we ignore these as merely bad news, or will we allow ourselves process the loss we keep perpetuating, and invite others to join in grief rituals for an increasingly unstable climate and process towards repair?
Like the smoke, grief keeps the elements moving. It allows for regeneration, new growth, and more light on the other side (ex. this fascinating recent research on wildfire smoke increasing overall photosynthesis). It’s not the west coasts’s fire or the east’s fire - it’s all our fire. The only way we can put it out is together.
photo by Alannah Campion, 2022