The Moveable Feast

It was the smell of woodsmoke, carried as a hint of what was happening at the beginning of the valley in front of our house, about a mile away. This was the first time since the bush fires had started over two weeks ago that we had any real indication at our house on the Atlantic side. It meant that the winds had shifted to the west.

The fires had started in the area around a new set of bush roads the government had pushed in the commonage to the south. Wide gaping scars, the rough cut roads were made by a caterpillar to place survey stakes. The furrows along the sides were huge piles of broken trees, rocks, and the dirt formed on the floor of the centuries-old forest.

Now over a dozen fires spotted the horizon. We think that the first fire was started by native crabbers using the bush cuts as convenient access to their favorite delicacy, land crabs. A careless cigarette butt or match did the rest.

With morning coffee in hand, Nancy and I climbed the tower path. From the top of the tower some 80 feet above sealevel, we can see the island near us from side to side for about 30 miles in either direction.

Below us to the south about a mile were the fires we had been fighting all week.

Some were now just charred and browned areas where the palmettos had literally exploded into flame. The areas we had put out were smokeless and dead. The other fires sent up plumes of white smoke. Together the smoke created a blanket of white, slowly drifting up the valley to our house.

We began to talk about the last week fighting the fires and how getting help to fight the fires had been very difficult.

When we called the local government, now led by the son of our oldest friend in Tarpum Bay, he drifted into the royal plural. “With fires in the bush, we take a wait-and-see attitude. ”

We finally convinced him to at least come out and do the “see” part, telling him that we hoped that he would visit the scene of the bushfires. The devastation to the wildlife, the effects on the water table, and the thirty years that it would take for the land to recover has just not yet entered the public consciousness of the average Bahamian. Our hope was that we could affect the attitude that if it wasn’t threatening a house, a fire was not important.

The first of the fires had threatened a home though, or neighbour Richard.  There was quite a crowd gathered by the time we arrived after spotting the smoke twenty miles away after coming back from dinner at Tippy’s with our friend, Paul. The fire was especially bad, as a 20 mile per hour wind was pushing the fire in the direction of the house. The fire pump from Tarpum Bay had arrived, a diesel pump on a small red utility trailer with “Tarpum Bay Fire Department” emblazoned in white letters on the side rails.

But where was the water to come from? Someone said there was a new construction site down the road, and there was a pit dug to take the septic tank that had filled with ground water. The pump was pulled over and positioned by the 4 foot hole.

Richard, our neighbour dropped the intake line into the pit full of brackish water, and three or four of us lay out the fire hose in the direction of the fire. Meanwhile, Richard tried to start the pump. Our friend Paul, visiting from St. Petersburg, was at the end waiting for the stream.

When the fire hose was all coupled, we suddenly discovered that the nozzle was not on the pump trailer. Somehow at the last fire, the nozzle had disappeared.

Laying down my piece of hose, I ran back to the pump. There was a long discussion going on among the men standing around. I caught fragments as I caught up on the situation. “Maybe it needs to be leveled.” “There’s no foot valve.” ” I saw this happen with an old engine of mine before. ” “They need to keep this in better shape.” - all at the pace of a Sunday afternoon conversation.

The local government’s water pump was not cooperating. “Did you check the fuel?”, Richard says. Off comes the cap. No fuel. Richard walks off to his station wagon to go to his house for some diesel. Meanwhile, Paul the man on the business end of the hose starts pulling the line back as the fire continues to approach. If he stays where he is, the water hose will start to burn. The fire is now about three hundred feet from the house, sparks flying in huge clouds into the night sky with every crack of the intense heat.

Richard finally returned with a can of diesel fuel, and he pours some into the tank. The pulling on the cord starter resumes, but still no pump. The august assembly resumes its discussion, alternating between tentative solutions laced with whatever their last experience with a pump, diesel, fire or water may have been. The deliberation leans to the favored conclusion - the fault lies with the last party who had the pump.

Meanwhile the fire advances. After twenty minutes of mutual consultation, the problem is discovered. The fuel line was airlocked. Line primed, the pump finally takes off with a roar. The call goes down the line, ” Water’s coming!” “Water’s coming!”

Our friend Paul had fallen back to check the line, and when the pump had cut in, the business end of the hose was unmanned. As the water filled the hose, over a dozen leaks in the hose suddenly show up. Near the fire, the people who had gathered round to watch the water come out the end of the hose were taken totally by surprise, and just stood there with the water gushing out the end onto the ground twenty feet from the fire. I yelled, “Point it to the fire!” The men at the front shuffled around a little and fell back. One man walked away back to his truck where others were standing.

The nozzle had still not shown up, so with whatever pressure there was on the line, I grabbed the end, stuck it between my legs, and stuck my hands into the stream to create a jet. By then the fire was about 40 feet long and the width of the furrow, about 10 feet.

With a large roar, the first of the water hit the blaze. I could not move the full hose any closer, and we had removed the last length as there was a huge split in the second last link that wiped out the pressure. Paul grabbed the hose near the split and directed the stream from the tear into the fire. I aimed what water was left at the base of the fire.

The fire began to subside almost immediately, and the area fell dark. As we dealt with the remainder of the embers in the high winds, the pressure began to fall in the hose. “The pit’s out of water!”, I heard from the people gathered near me. Paul and I immediately hit the last of the trouble areas, a huge toppled tree whose roots were on fire. It had been soaked quite good from one side, but the back side was burning like a large campfire.

Too late. The water trickled, then stopped. The huge root began to burn harder, flamed by the winds. I tried to empty the hose into a pail that I had found on the construction site, thinking that I might be able to dowse the growing fire before it got too big.

There was nothing we could do. Before we knew it, the bramble caught, and the fire was off again.

I looked back expectantly to the men gathered round, yelling for help. There was a chance if we pulled the root into the cleared area. But it was big, and needed about four men. As I poured the little bits of water from the split in the hose to the pail, I could see the men fade back into the night away from the rising flames. The littel crowds at the hose end and at the road thinned, as people got into their vehicles and drove off. Finally the blaze became too hot to work, and I retreated.

The blaze roared back to life and began eating away at the bush. It was small compared to the first fire, so we just had to let it burn itself out. There were other small fires, started from the blowing sparks, and Paul and I beat them out with shovels before they could grow. It was difficult without water, but we managed to quell three or four before they spread into the bush on the other side of the tractor cut.

Finally everything was out except the fire that had got away. As we walked back to the pump, exhausted, wet and filthy, there were two or three people still there, one of them the head of the local government council. I asked him about the missing fire equipment, but he didn’t seem to know where it had ended up. My neighbour Richard, was finishing pouring water on the roof of the house. He had been waiting for the water truck - operated by his cousin - to arrive since early evening to spray down the house. Now, at 12:30 am, as the fire threw off blankets of sparks into the wind, Richard was on the roof, and Cindy his wife and Nancy were handing him buckets of water to pour onto the shingles.

I briefly wondered whether we should have concentrated on soaking the house rather than trying to put out the main fire. Without the nozzle we would have had no luck anyway. I suppose we could have just taken the open hose onto the roof, but, the best idea at the time was to deal with the real problem.

We broke off for the evening, tired and discouraged. The blaze still burned across the road. There were still many more fires still burning in the bush behind this one. It was to be a long week.