This week’s prompt reminds me of 2007 when we were in Paradise, Michigan during the Sleeper Lake Forest Fire of 2007. Now, we weren’t in the fire. We didn’t live there. We weren’t drastically affected by it like people that lived there, but we were visiting. My in-laws have a cabin in the federal forest on the south end of Whitefish Bay and we were up visiting them. We had a room at the motel in Paradise. And I know before the trip, we were watching the news. We were worried that the fire was heading for Paradise, that it could take over the town.
And thankfully, it did not. But it was surreal being in the town and having big — the big lighted road signs, usually reserved for construction zones on the freeway, but saying, “Wild fire danger on US 123 — or Michigan 123,” you know, “Danger. Careful.” Like it’s, it’s weird to see a big lighted road sign warning of a forest fire, not just potholes and construction workers.
And the smoke was everywhere, and there is — the one day that we were up there, we decided we would drive 123, since the road was open and just see what it was about. And we didn’t figure we would see anything, you know, we thought it would be in all the massive acreage of forest north of the freeway between Lake Superior and 123. Not a freeway, I guess, just a highway.
So, we headed out towards Newberry from Paradise, and it will always be, pun intended, burned in my memory. There were places where the fire had not only jumped the road and was on both sides of it, but we could still hear crackling in the underbrush from the car with the windows open. We could, I swear, still see some flames and embers flickering a little bit. It was not the main thrust of the fire. I mean, it had come through and jumped the road a couple of days before. But it was close. I’m surprised the road was open. Again, you could hear it crackling from the car.
And then when we got through to the Newberry side, we could see the big staging area with all of the vehicles from firefighters and a Red Cross station. And you know, we drove to Newberry, we turned around and we headed back. You could see the smoke from the forest fire in the air. You couldn’t see it when you were in Paradise ’cause you’re kind of in it, but you could see a vertical line where the smoke rose up from the fire and then headed east by the prevailing winds. You could just see that haze heading east.
And we drove back on 123, again, hearing it crackle, seeing the trees that are still standing but absolutely charred on one side and just, in places, nothing but just charred ground and remains of trees to the left, couple times a little bit to the right. You could see 123 was the firebreak at some point in fighting this fire. And even now, you know, a decade plus later, this sticks in my mind as one of the more memorable things that I’ve seen when out traveling is being really close to where a fire — a forest fire had just recently been.