Emily Articulated: Ready, set, go

By Emily Erickson
Reader Columnist

“Take only what you need.” This is a phrase that many in our community have had to confront in light of the fires growing around us for the past couple of weeks.

Namely, since its start on Aug. 13, the Sunset Fire has spread across more than 3,200 acres, overtaking forest and shoreline, and threatening communities like Athol, Careywood and Bayview. Residents across Bonner County have had to prepare — some with slight notice — to leave their homes behind.

Guiding this preparation is a simple communication system developed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, with “Ready, Set and Go,” used to delineate the stages of wildfire preparedness. The system lays out a clear, action-oriented plan: “Ready” means long-term home and property preparation, “Set” means staying informed and packed for evacuation, and “Go” means leaving early when danger becomes imminent.

From my house, separated from the fire by the vastness of the lake, I’ve been afforded contemplation of this readiness from a hypothetical place. It’s a luxury I know could disappear in a flash of lightning or from a different fire on a different day, and one that so many around me haven’t had. But a luxury, that for now, still holds.

“They’re just things,” people say, in an attempt to rationalize the proximity to or experience with evacuation, leaving behind all the things they can’t bring with them. But I know that often, that isn’t exactly the case.

As a child, my family experienced a fire that destroyed far more than the things it burned. We lost our dog, for whom my dad suffered third-degree burns trying to save. We lost nearly a year’s worth of my dad’s carpentry — and with it, the biggest job opportunity of his career. And we lost the security of thinking it couldn’t happen to us. 

The experience left rubble my dad could never clear, the fire becoming a turning point in his ever-deepening depression and the substance abuse he used to numb it. He carried away all that he could, but it was the weight of what he couldn’t carry that stayed with him the rest of his life.

I remember sifting through the debris that smelled like campfire, wondering what grand discernment the fire seemed to have in all that it charred and all that it left intact. My bike’s handlebars captured it perfectly: one side scorched black, the other still bright pink, with tinsel tassels unscathed.

Mary Oliver, in her poem “Storage,” writes about discarding the contents of her storage unit, declaring: “Things! Burn them! Burn them! Make a beautiful fire! Make more room in your heart for love, for the trees! For birds who own nothing — the reason they can fly.” And although some of the sentiment rings true to me, specifically as it is applied to excess, I think the poem has an important and unsaid implication: The freest birds fly because they know they have the safety and comfort of a nest to return to when it is time to land.

Yes, our homes hold so many replaceable things — just things — but they also comprise the artifacts of our lives. They hold photo albums and family dishes and old art projects and favorite books. They contain couches with imprints from countless nights spent curled up together, just so, and kitchen floors with scratch marks from pets long gone. Houses can be places of memory or snapshots of our current lives, but also of lives we lived that we’ll never live again. And with those, all the meaning and significance we attach to them.

So, for all those who have faced or are facing “Ready” or “Set”: I’m so sorry you’re grappling with the what-ifs. For all those who have lived through, “Go”: my heart breaks for what you prepared to lose. And to those who have already lost: I hope you feel the full strength of community around you as you pick up the pieces and rebuild; because, while some things are “just things,” so many are also irreplaceable relics of a life.

Finally, a well-deserved “thank you” to the hundreds of people fighting this fire — the crews on the ground, the patrols from boats and the teams in the sky — working tirelessly to secure fire lines and protect our communities. Local and national groups alike have come together, making impossible calculations with extraordinary care so that fewer people have to face such devastating loss. Our gratitude is resounding.

[Editor’s note: According to an Aug. 25 alert from the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office, all “Go” evacuation levels have been lifted for the Sunset fire, though some roads in and around access to Talache have been downgraded to “Set” status.]

Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www.bigbluehat.studio.