The Hayman Fire

Is this some kind of martian landscape? Perhaps it's the surface of the moon? Maybe it's some extremely remote and inhospitable part of the globe, like Siberia? Alas, no. You're looking at a very small portion of the aftermath of the Hayman Fire, a monthlong inferno that consumed almost 140,000 acres of land, destroyed 133 homes and forced well over 5,000 people to evacuate. What's scary is, the Hayman Fire happened eight years ago next month. After eight years, this is what the landscape still looks like.

I remember it well. The fire started only 35 miles from Colorado Springs and quickly mushroomed into the largest fire in Colorado history. The air was dark and full of ash, the smell of smoke was pervasive, and at night the sky glowed to the west. Many of my friends were affected and had to evacuate their homes. It seemed like it would never end. The beautiful irony of the situation was that the fire was started by a forest ranger, Terry Barton, who was apparently attempting to burn a letter from her ex-husband. [Note to self: do not burn letters in a national forest on a windy day during a drought year. Maybe use the paper shredder at the office instead.]

Driving through the Hayman burn area, you can see extensive, endless damage. There are long stretches where all you can see is miles and miles of burned trees. Just imagine the photo above multiplied about 200,000 times. It's very sad. What's even scarier is how close the fire came to so many homes. There are burnt skeletons of trees on the fringes of people's yards, and scorched stop signs at rural intersections.

I wonder how many more years it will be before this part of the world is green again. The Forest Service has been aggressively replanting every year, but I still don't see many signs of rebirth.