FOREST FIRE Sparks Fly Crackling Sound Trees Down On fire Smoke rises up to the Sky Wolves Howl Bears Flee Ash Fills up the Ground Elk Run for their Lives. Birds and Butterflies try To Escape to Sky Crickets, Worms and Ants Fry Thunder Strikes, The Wind Blows, Making it Worse Animals Die Trees Burn, Dogs Bark, Fire Spreads Across, Lives Lost Homes Destroyed , Treasures Gone Memories Turned into Smoke Disappear into the Sky That has Turned Orange and Red.
fire
A Plea from the Red Zone
California, oh man — land of opportunity, of sunshine, of warm sandy beaches, of snow-capped peaks. California. Land of vast cities, quiet suburbs, quaint rural farming communities. California, California, oh man, California. Land of smoke, land of fire. Land of citizens scattered about the state, homes burned to the ground, ashes gently swooping down like charred bird feathers from the monotonous grey sky. My name is Liam Hancock, and I once lived in that postcard California. That kind of place where crystal clear lakes could thrive with colorful little fish, or where ocean waves could roar into salty air. But that was a while ago, I suppose. Back then, I was only nine, ten years old with nothing to worry about but grade school crushes and particularly bothersome video game trends. 2017. Three years ago, California was thrown into a caliber of disaster that it hadn’t faced in nearly one hundred years since the San Francisco Earthquake. Nearly 3 million citizens—real, living people—plunged into chaos. We waved goodbye to any sense of normalcy we’d ever had before, along with any manageable AQI. Beautiful wine country and many other significant locations were set ablaze. I watched as cities I’d once loved burned to nothing but ash in the matted dirt. And the smoke – there was ample smoke, and not the good kind either. Not the midnight-on-a-fantastic-camping-trip-campfire kind of smoke. The kind of smoke that hovered midair and tainted everything grey and dried out my throat and filtered it’s stench of char and gasoline anywhere it could manage to. 2017 left thousands of lives and homes destroyed beyond repair, and even though it has been voided from news networks, the effects are still real here in California. It takes years and years of intense effort for both the environment and the people to mend their scars, if only that. Unfortunately, nature waits for nothing and 2020 has thrown us yet another curveball. Just last week, my sister and I were awoken to a recently off-limits sight here in the suburbs of San Francisco—lightning. It was an indescribable feeling to watch sheer electricity arcing across a morning sky. We ate up almost all of our morning in an attempt to catch video or photo evidence so our parents couldn’t disprove us. Not soon after, though, we heard the wail of sirens racing down the main avenue adjacent to our townhome. “Maybe it’s just a police call,” I said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. My sister chewed her lip, eyes glued to the sky. “Yeah,” she replied after an even longer period of even more uncomfortable silence. “Yeah, maybe that’s what it is.” A good couple minutes later, our parents arose and herded the two of us back inside. The entire day, I sat riveted near our french window as the smoke reliably fell from the sky along with thick grey ashes. I repeatedly checked the fire location feeds on my tablet throughout the day to discover that we were soon to be completely surrounded by wildfires. Complexes, they call them, aroused by the recent lightning strikes throughout California. And my family is in the red. And so are the millions of other families around us. People. Living, breathing people. Once again, our lives are all at risk. Our lives are in the red. So this is a plea from California. And if you’re reading this, then you can help. You already have. States from across the nation have sent in their own brave teams of firefighters to aid ours in the complex nearest to me, the SCU Complex, which has now scorched nearly 35,000 acres of my own county and counties nearby. My name is Liam Hancock, full name Liam Patrick Hancock. Call me Liam for short, it’s a bit less of a mouthful. I love to write, perform, and sing. I have a special fascination with roller coasters, all shapes and sizes (although I’m way too scared to ride most of them). I’m twelve years old, almost thirteen, but of course it doesn’t quite feel like it yet. I’ve got two pets, a dog and a cat, and I both love them till the ends of the earth. That’s my own story, but don’t be fooled. There are countless other stories that need to be read, that need to be appreciated. Preserved. So I beg of you to remember that there are people in the red. California isn’t just a land mass, it isn’t just a state on fire. There are people on fire here as well. Maybe not physically, but we’re watching the places we know and love be destroyed. We’re on fire. We’re putting up our strongest fight possible, and we know you are putting up yours. So, in support of our firefighters, of our stories, of the families in The Red Zones – please spread this message to the folks you know. Because, after all, every single person can make a difference. All you have to do is post: #RedZoneStrong on your own social media accounts to keep our days bright regardless of the AQI. There it is: #RedZoneStrong is all it takes to keep us going. Go right now, share it with the world. This is a plea. A plea from California.
Writing Activity: using a natural process to structure a short short story with “The Fire” by Campe Goodman, 12
Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing Activity This is a short short story about someone who lights a fire in a fireplace, watches it burn for a while, letting his imagination wander along with the flames, and then, bored, goes away from the fire to do something else. The character finally returns to the fireplace, but only after the fire is out. This story has a beginning (lighting the fire), middle (the fire is burning and the character is dreaming), and end (the character returns to the dead fire). Project: Describing What You See Think of things you have watched closely, such as fish in an aquarium, rain falling outside a window, traffic on a street, or clouds in the sky. Decide on something to write about. Then think of a character who, in your story, will see what you saw. Show us what that character sees and how that character responds to what he or she has seen. Remember, this character is not you and may act very differently from the way you act. Author Campe Goodman’s character in “The Fire” is not given a name and his physical features are not described. But writing fiction is like making magic: because Campe describes the fire so well, and because he shows us how his character does things—how he lights the fire, how he dreams for a while and then gets bored with it all—we get some idea of what this fictional person is like. Campe gives his story structure (a beginning, a middle, and end) partly by choosing to describe a process (burning paper and wood) that involves dramatic change. You can do the same if you choose to describe something like the sky as it turns dark at night, or a cloud as it forms, turning from wisps to a fantastic shape and then back into wisps. The Fire By Campe Goodman, 12, Norfolk Academy, Norfolk, Virginia From the September/October 1985 issue of Stone Soup The pile of logs and paper lay lifeless in the fireplace. I lit a match and wondered how this could produce my mind’s picture of a roaring, blazing fire. I pulled back the chain curtain and tossed the flickering match in. Soon flames shot up from the paper leaving an inky black trail wherever they wandered. The smaller pieces of wood began to glow, and gradually tongues of fire enveloped them. I could no longer distinguish between paper and wood, for the dancing fire blurred everything. Slowly the flames soared higher and higher as a red veil crept over the logs. Now the fire was a mountain range with jagged red peaks rising and falling. Twisted ghostly shapes could be seen weaving in and out among the flames. Little by little I lost interest in the shapes and walked away. I returned later to find the fire blackened, trying to find life in the few remaining embers. These gradually faded out, too, leaving me with only memories of the fire.
