Last year, it was easy to forget what summer in the West has become.
There were clear skies. The air smelled clean. No burning eyes. From the top of a peak in the Lost River Range, you could see the ends of the Earth. Few people were worried they would have to evacuate, or even lose, their homes.
But this year we’re back to normal.
Smoke filled the Treasure Valley, and much of the rest of the state, for most of the summer. Towns in the Sawtooths have lived on the knife’s edge of evacuation for weeks. Many residents near Stanely were evacuated for a time and could be again. The Plex Fire last week led to the sudden evacuation of several Boise subdivisions .
So many people terrified. So much beauty gone. It’s what’s happened almost every summer of my life.
When I was a kid, I was evacuated from a big forest fire. Hundreds of people in my town lost their homes. For months after that, the mountains that had always watched over us looked like the surface of the moon. Nothing ever felt the same there again.