April 2, After a fire

This morning dawned clear and colder.  26 degrees this morning, and finally warmed up to about
55, but it didn't feel warm, as a  cold wind was blowing all day.  As I drove home, these blue skies got incredibly dark and heavy, and after I got home, it snowed. Like a blizzard.
These spring squalls are sometimes surprising.  My husband took his snow tires off today, so I blame him.

The area shown above was almost completely destroyed by a very intense fire about 40 years ago.  The forest was making some recovery, and then, the Las Conchas fire came through again in 2010.  I wanted to see how it looked now.  What I have learned about fire since living here is that, in spite of all the Smokey Bear images we saw growing up, fire is a natural occurrence in the forest. It plays a crucial role in forest health.  Forest Service policies over the last several decades have been to suppress all fires.  This resulted in unnaturally thick forests, with an unhealthy understory.  This spot was thick, dog hair forest in 1973.  Then the fire raged and wiped out almost everything.  Since then,  a slow recovery has been taking place.

 Grasslands with varied turf grasses, wildflowers, and shrubs came back, followed by the Gambrel Oak ( we call it the fire oak, as it is one of the first trees to return), and then, junipers and finally, Ponderosa Pines.  This takes a long time.  40 years, and it still resembles more of a scrubby mesaland, rather than a forest.

When the Las  Conchas fire came through here, though it was very intense, it did not destroy everything. With more open areas, the fire tended to burn along the ground, and finish off any dead or dying trees.
I know it was very hot, because some areas are s till completely barren, 2  years later, as if the soil itself had been burned  and fused into glass.

This is one such area.   What you see in the middle there is known as a stump hole.  This is the site of a
fair sized tree, which burned so intensely that the fire continued to burn, all the way to the roots, underground, and kept burning until everything was consumed.  Those holes you see are where the roots used to be.  The ground here is still totally devoid of life.  These stump holes are a major danger immediately after a fire, because ashes will hide the holes, and these roots will be smouldering for even months after the original fire has gone. Step in one of these, and terrible burns can result.

 My hike also led to an interesting discovery.  The mound, and stones above are what is left of an ancient Pueblo dwelling, probably several of them.  The ancestral Pueblos lived in this area from around 700AD to 1500AD.  Just think, when Columbus was "discovering" America, these ancient peoples were thriving here.

Here are some  pottery shards near the ruin.  How amazing that the carefully handpainted designs are still evident after centuries.  I didn't get a photo, but the back of some of these shards show how these ancient peoples made their pots using a coil method, and pinching the coils together.  I leave these artifacts where they lay, as it is unlawful to remove them.

This is the view from the site of the ruin.  These canyons flow to the Rio Grande, but I wonder how different the climate or forest might have been back then.  There is no water nearby now.  Perhaps accumulated years of drought drove them to move elsewhere. Nobody really knows.

Here is the result of the more recent burn two years ago.  Because the forest had been thinned by the earlier fire, it did not destroy everything.  About half of these trees survived, and the grasses underneath have returned.

I think about alot of things when I wander these woods.  Today, I realized we have to have the long view.  Recovery, and change, take time.  Sometimes more than a lifetime. What seems like a disaster to us, may just be a part of a larger design.  To see it here, as in our own life, we need to have patience, and some faith.