WHAT I LEARNED BY STARTING A RANGE FIRE

Like how to put it out.

During a high school sports trip a team in two vans drove through Wyoming.

If memory serves, Wyoming was the closest state to Oregon selling fun fireworks like bottle rockets and firecrackers after a lifetime of sparklers and Piccolo Petes.

Since we were high school guys in both vans, we started a bottle rocket war driving down the freeway, shooting them at each other.

It was great fun until someone noticed smoke behind us. We were traveling through grass land in the summer and a bottle rocket missed the van and torched the field.

This was the moment of truth, of seeing what kind of people I was with when I said turn around.

We turned around and attacked the fire with blankets and coats and water bottles and sleeping bags. We used everything we had. We put it out eventually and piled back into the vans tired and sweaty.

One of the guys took a nap. Another guy broke a firecracker just enough to burn the powder off. When he put it back together it looked like any other firecracker.

Another guy nudged the napper awake just as a firecracker with a lit fuse landed on his lap.

High school fire fun

The reason I tell this story is the fire part. How do you stop a fire? I asked an older man and he responded like the Boy Scout he must have been.

He said, “Limit the fuel, contain the range, and work the flames,” just like he’d been thinking the same thing.

The Boy Scout mention isn’t an insult or praise, but a reminder of good sense. Don’t test a smoldering fire by adding gasoline makes sense?

When my kids were younger I wanted to show them the power of fire. I poured gas on a gravel path in the backyard and set it on fire. Lesson learned, right? Except it wouldn’t go out.

“Quick, boys, bring dad the hose. One of you stay back and turn it on,” I said.

“Shouldn’t we have the hose already here?” one asked.

“Dad, will the fence catch on fire?” the other asked.

“Bring me the shovel and the hose, boys,” I said, the flames nearing a flowerbed full of dry clippings.

“Shouldn’t we have the shovel ready first?”

It was a learning moment for all of us.

Don’t do a fire power demonstration without fire prevention handy. And don’t be a ‘know-it-all.’ Let the audience join in. (That’s right boys, I didn’t have the hose and shovel out on purpose, though I did pour too much gas.)

Fire education starts early

Not bragging, but in third grade I won the Fire Prevention award for my class. I wrote a limerick, though I thought it was a poem at the time.

There once was a boy named Patches,

Who laughed when he played with matches,

His laugh turned to a frown,

When he burned his house down,

And now he has nothing but ashes

Besides the limerick I drew a picture of a wooden match burning on the left side of the poster and a pile of ashes along the bottom.

My takeaway, and yours for the taking: If you see a problem growing out of control, so something. Put out the fire. Patch the hole. Try and reach out in love.

I blame that last sentence on Cheryl Strayed. Seeing Tiny Beautiful Things was a reminder of the first rule, which is that last sentence.