Ronnie Stout’s Wildfire

Sunlight filtered through the pine needles as the summer day sighed. The smell of wood smoke lingered in the shadows. It wasn’t the scent of a campfire filling our nostrils, but rather the acrid remains of the Park Fire that ravaged northern California. The scars of the massive fire surrounded us. Armies of fire trucks still filled the roads. It was sobering.

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August 30th, 2024- California Day 7

The Park Fire began when a nondescript man named Ronnie Stout parked his mother’s 2007 Toyota on the side of a road in Bidwell Park, California. The tires bumped up over the berm, dry grass scraping the underside of the small vehicle. Before Ronnie could stop it, the car’s momentum carried it further up the embankment, lodging the vehicle solidly in place. It was stuck. Ronnie mashed his foot onto the accelerator, listening to the engine roar as it attempted to propel the vehicle over the berm. A few seconds later, a harsh smell drifted up from beneath the car. A white wisp followed soon after. The sunbaked grass, devoid of any rain for weeks, had ignited. Within moments, his mother’s Toyota had also caught fire. The man scrambled out of the car, looking with abject horror at the incident he had just caused. What was going through Ronnie’s mind at that moment? Was he under the influence of a drink or substance? Was he afraid of the law enforcement officers that would undoubtedly appear? Did he shy away from the eyes of the curious onlookers? Did he fear the reaction of his mother, whose vehicle was being devoured by flames in front of him? The news articles were never clear. According to onlookers, Ronnie acted in haste after he inadvertently caught his mother’s Toyota on fire. Putting the car in neutral, he planted his hands on the back of the car and, with some effort, rolled it into a ravine. There, it fueled the largest California wildfire of 2024.

I blinked, bringing my eyes back into focus. Our small campfire smoked cheerily in its pit. Morning sunlight sliced bright beams through the haze, spotlighting vibrant clumps of lichen growing on the trees around us. A white mug of tea warmed my hands. The Lassen National Forest was peaceful. The firetrucks were gone. The destruction of the last few weeks had finally been quelled. The Park Fire was over. 

I had been thinking a lot about Ronnie Stout lately. Many of my thoughts were filled with indignant anger, especially after witnessing the destruction firsthand. The burning haze of smoke still lingered in Lassen National Park when we had visited yesterday. The stench had made my head pound. I could only imagine what it was like to be a park employee at Lassen. How long had they been forced to evacuate their workplace when the fire came? Did they fear the future of their park, their homes, their careers? As they tentatively returned to normal life, did the fire remnants give them migraines too? And what about the hundreds of people who evacuated their homes? Some had no homes to return to. All because Ronnie Stout tried to hide his mistake instead of face it. Why couldn’t he have called for help? Why didn’t he do more?

Yet I’ve made mistakes too. Once, I mistakenly backed my grandfather’s pickup truck into my neighbor’s ditch. My grandfather loved that truck. He handwashed it, carefully drove it, even pinstriped it himself. Any threat to the truck was a threat to my grandfather. Heck, when his garage caught fire one frigid March morning, my grandfather even ran into the burning building to save the truck. You can imagine, then, the panic he must have felt when his oldest granddaughter got his prized vehicle stuck in a ditch. Yet for all my grandfather’s anxiety, mine was doubled. I knew the gravity of my mistake as soon as I did it. I knew how much despair I had just caused him. If I had subsequently caught my grandfather’s truck on fire, and then half of Ohio with it, the shame, guilt, and anguish would have been crippling. I did not envy Ronnie Stout, even if I didn’t understand his actions. I pitied him.

My eyes wandered towards our little cabin. My iPad still lay on the porch railing, where I had perched to do some writing earlier that morning. Tall trees stretched protective branches over the green metal roof. Just out of sight, mountains reposed behind the trees. How many wildfires had those massive mountains seen over their centuries? Countless, I was sure. Mountains are ancient witnesses to an ever-changing landscape. It is easy to assume that the world is a sturdy, unchangeable place when surrounded by the strength of a mountain range. In truth, the world as we know it is very, very fragile. We are blessed to live without wildfire threats in Ohio, but our comfort doesn’t give license for complacency. We are the stewards of nature. If the land is to remain as beautiful as she is, we must protect her. In the wake of wildfire, this was more apparent to me than ever.

We lingered in Lassen National Forest for as long as we could. It felt important to bear witness to the destruction of the Park Fire. It was humbling to even have the chance to visit the region. Lassen Volcanic National Park, the national forest, and our rental cabin had been closed to the public until just a week ago. The fact that we were there, surrounded by ashes and fire trucks, was a testament to the hard work of many. People had lost their homes and livelihoods to the fire. It cost $351 million to fully contain the blaze. It was only right for us to be grateful.

We drove for a long time that day. We journeyed from the mountains to the sea, a five-hour stretch that took us away from our cozy cabin, through wildfire damage, over desert stretches, and eventually, to the fog-laden ferns of the coastal forests. The differences were astounding on the coast. Heavy mist obsured the brilliant blue skies we had eaten s’mores under at breakfast. Waterfalls trickled between trees so tall they disappeared into the low clouds. Ferns the height of my thighs grew so thickly that you couldn’t see the forest floor. Elk grazed in backyards in small towns. We had stepped into a different world, one untouched by the savagery of fire. Our minds, however, held the images of what we had seen. We would not soon forget. Nor should we. 

Our mistakes are never our own.