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Some of us used to joke that a couple of hard winters would fix most of what ails Colorado. A fortnight of subzero highs and sideways snow can induce cabin fever even in one of those 5,000-square-foot ridgetop castles, especially if the power goes out for a few days.
The lightweights will flee for more comfortable jurisdictions. No need to build new highways, sprawl would reverse, there would be water enough for those who stayed -- the list of benefits could be extended indefinitely.
But the truth must be told. In all this taproom speculation, none of us ever thought about a hard summer, and that's what we've got this year: Blistering highs in the 90s, even at 7,000 feet. A murky sky with sinister smoke clouds that resemble the cover of a horror novel. Wildfires burning out of control all over the state.
But on the national front, the big news has is that President Bush wants a new cabinet department for Homeland Security. It's supposed to protect us, of course, but I heard a lot more worry yesterday than I did on Sept. 11.
There's the fear that the wind could shift, or that a closer fire could start, and these forests are so dry that it wouldn't even take a careless camper -- just a spark off a sagging trailer safety chain might do the job. And with fire-fighting resources already stretched, what happens next is anybody's guess.
But maybe we could get in on the Homeland Security gravy train if could plausibly blame terrorists for starting the fires, and that's not as far-fetched as it sounds.
During World War II, the Japanese military couldn't really project force onto the American mainland. They bombed Hawaii and occupied some islands in the Aleutians, and their submarines lobbed a few shells onto the West Coast.
But they couldn't bomb our cities the way we bombed theirs -- at least, not with airplanes.
So they tried something else. In late 1944, they began launching hydrogen-filled balloons from the island of Honshu. After the 33-foot balloons rose to about 35,000 feet, prevailing winds carried them across the Pacific Ocean in about 70 hours.
After the estimated transit time had elapsed, its mechanism began releasing four incendiary bombs, one at a time, followed by one or two anti-personnel bombs, and then a flash bomb to destroy the balloon bag.
The main idea was to start forest fires in our Pacific Northwest, both to destroy timber the U.S. might need in fighting the war and to divert U.S. manpower from war production to fire-fighting.
Japan launched 9,000 balloons. According to a U.S. Air Force history, perhaps 1,000 made it across the Pacific, although only 285 were actually found. Most were near the West Coast, although one made it as far as Michigan, and my mother remembers rumors of them in Wyoming. Once the U.S. learned of the balloons, many were shot down over the sea.
With the co-operation of the U.S. news media, the balloons were kept secret, since news accounts would let Japanese intelligence learn when and where the balloons had landed, and that information might allow them to improve their techniques.
Not knowing whether these weapons had worked, Japan quit sending them in April, 1945. The only American casualties were a family on a church picnic near Bly, Ore., who found a balloon in the woods whose anti-personnel bomb then exploded, killing a minister's wife and their five children on May 5, 1945.
So, if we could just blame these fires on balloons, rather than moronic campers or persistent coal-mine fires, then the federal government might appropriate some money for forest management, rather than finding new ways to subsidize corporate farms and steel producers.
Meanwhile, Pike National Forest is closed. You can't camp or even hike there. Potential campers were westbound bumper-to-bumper Monday morning on Trout Creek Pass, headed for our open San Isabel National Forest. The Salida ranger station said they were talking about closing San Isabel, too, since people don't seem to be obeying the ban on campfires, but my deadline came before any official announcement, one way or the other.
We'll all have to adjust. Instead of displaying
Welcome to Colorful Colorado
at the borders, we
could Welcome to Combustible Colorado.
Our Official State Tree could move from Colorado Blue
Spruce to Colorado Smoking Ponderosa Stump, and we could
replace the culverwort as our State Flower with the Fire
Poppy. (It's a California native, but so are many of our
residents, and its habitat is open brush and woods,
especially after fires.
)
As for a State Mammal, Barbecued Bighorn
alliterates well, and with the dismal flows in our rivers,
we could get by without an Official State Fish.
Hard winters can be tough, but this hard summer looks to be a lot tougher.
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