Long day. How better to recount it than chronologically.
Up at six. Leave at Seven for the Trigo Fire. An event's scheduled at the Tijeras Ranger Station. I get there early, just keep driving toward the fire. Stop at a little general store for coffee. Trade gossip on the fire with everyone else there. Continue driving down 337 'til I hit the "T" with 55. Last time I turned right to go down to Torreon, Manzano, and eventually Mountainair. This time that road was closed -- authorities weren't letting *anybody* in to the evacuation zone. Turned left instead, toward Estancia. Maybe sixteen miles later discover that's a charming little town as well. Humanity (if it survives) will bemoan the day the mobile home was invented.
I've come to Estancia to find the shelter that the Red Cross has set up. It isn't easy -- I'm guessing anyone who *should* be there knows their way around the small towns on the back roads of New Mexico. I seem to have several different addresses for it. Not helpful. Wander into the County building twice 'cause that seems the best candidate among the wooden churches and houses in the little town out on the plains. It's not. I'd called Elaine from the road asking her to let me know if anything came out through the e-mail that I should know. She calls me back while I'm at the county building. She tells me the contents of the latest Forest Service press release. Listening to her talk about acreage and ground crews and aeroplanes and windspeed it just dawns on me -- *that's* not the story. The *story* is what the people in the little general stores are saying. It takes me hearing fire statistics being read over my cellphone while *feeling* the wind in my face and smelling the fire miles away in the air to *see* that. She gives me two numbers for the Red Cross and I call.
The guy who answers is nice but obviously doesn't know the town. "It's on the main street", he tells me. "You mean Fifth?" I ask. He answers "oh, does it even have a name?" It does. He doesn't know it. And it's actually *not* on the "main street". I find the post office, go in, and an older lady with *amazing* hair straight out of the 1870s tells me "go out this way, and you'll see it right down there". (I *love* small town post offices -- with reason.)
It's in the community center -- which was built in 1935 by the Works Progress Administration. It's utterly charming -- pueblo revival -- very simple, very functional, but very, very beautiful as well. Lots of attention to detail in these old WPA buildings. Appropriate to place, and built to human scale. It's got exposed wooden ceilings in a style modelled on vigas and latillas, and the ceiling of the gymnasium has these amazing rafters. The floor of the gymnasium has eight cots on it, a few tables, lots of plastic bottles of water, piles of clothes, snacks, and coffee. There's only one evacuee in the building and he's clearly not interested in talking to anyone.
The gentleman who talks to me strikes me as good and sincere but he can't, or won't help me. I get one-word answers to even the most simple and preliminary questions. "When did you open?" / "Monday." / "So about how many people would you say have come through?" / "Seventy-four." / "So how is everybody holding up?" Then he asks me "are you familiar with the Red Cross? With its mission, and its structure?" Jeezus. The story of the Red Cross ain't the story that I'm after. We exchange a few pleasantries but finally he tells me I need to talk to his supervisor, who's in ALBUQUERQUE but who's on his way and if I want to stick around for a couple of hours maybe *he* can answer some of my questions. You would think I'd asked him a trick question like "did you kill her before or *after* you took the money?" Call me crazy but I ain't stickin' around for two hours to talk to people who don't want to talk to me only to talk to someone I could have talked to in fuckin' Albuquerque. I've got to go ON AIR.
Drive back. Witness my first bomber actually drop slurry on the fire. Pictures don't do it justice. They take this HUGE old plane and fly it 'round and 'round in circles 'til it's practically scraping the tops of the trees and FWOOSH drop this big old amount of slurry -- red stuff -- fire retardant. Damn, that takes guts. And compared to the size of the fire it looks like about a teaspoonful of cough syrup.
Need to stop and think, see a sign leading to Oak Flat picnic area in the Cibola National Forest. Screw it -- my story's just falling apart, and I've been driving for hours. This is *nuts*. *I* am nuts. Get to the picnic area and figure "what the hell's the big deal, it's just a big old bunch of trees". I stop the car to get out and read the Forest Service's warning signs.
Silence.
No -- wait -- that isn't silence -- that's wind blowing through the pines. Sounds like the ocean. I decide what the heck, drive up to one of the picnic sites and get out and explore.
I do so. The forest is so overgrown I have to walk and walk before I find a place where I can penetrate it. I do. A few yards in I find myself looking at the forest floor. I've been looking for all the wrong things. I haven't *understood* something about what's *happening*. The forest floor in this tiny clearing is *covered* with dead pine needles. Pine cones. Oak leaves. Some other leaf I don't recognize. A few baby trees are poking up, but none more than a couple of inches. The older trees themselves are dry. Snags litter the ground. It's beautiful. Suddenly I am in another world, entirely.
Then suddenly the wind picks up again. I don't know how else to explain it other than to say I have a "Bambi moment". I can *smell* the smoke, *very* faintly. I imagine I can *hear* the fire. Suddenly I find I'm *terrified*. The fire is *miles* away. But *that's* the *same* wind that is *driving* the fire. And those dry things -- that's "fuel". I *literally* rush back out to my car and drive away at breakneck speeds.
Half a mile away it *hits* me -- *that's* the story. Get *that sound*. The sound of the roaring wind. I might be able to use it. I calm down enough to realise I'm not in any immediate danger and go back out to the spot and go in, even a little further, to a grove of pines around lichen-covered rocks. It's magical. And it overlooks a wide valley with nothing but trees for as far as the eye can see. I get my sound. I go back out.
I decide finally to go back to one or both of the general stores. At the first I get a frito pie. But it's not set up right to talk to anybody. It's small and crowded. So I just shut up and listen.
Finally make it back to the first. Actually, I overshoot it, meaning I have to drive back for maybe ten miles on this *crazy* curvy road. It's easy to miss things on 337 -- you keep your eyes on the road. Or you die. That simple. I'd bought something there before, and think I made a decent impression. Business owners seem to have a way of liking people who spend money in their stores. It's a kind of diplomacy I can understand. And the owner said she loved my station. That sure didn't hurt, either.
When I go back, we talk some more about the fire, the shelter, this and that. I ask her if she'd be willing to let me record her.
I *love* mountain people. They're freindly -- give you the shirt off their backs kind of people -- but shy. Even, maybe, a bit private. The mere *mention* of "record" or "microphone" or "broadcast" seems to make them self-conscious. She declines. So does the lady with her. They'll tell me anything and everything. But not on mic. "But wait", she says. She knows *one* person who will talk to me. I need to talk to Fred.
What she does then qualifes her, in my mind, as a dedicated reporter. She pulls out two *huge* rolodexes *stuffed* with cards and systematically goes through one while the other lady with her goes through the other. No Fred, there. Then it's on to the *other* filing system -- the "guest checks" -- of which there are literally *hundreds* in piles -- I have *no* idea how this system works for her, but obviously it does.
Except they can't find Fred's phone number.
So they call someone else.
That someone else has Fred's number, and gives it to her.
She calls Fred. I figure "give her some privacy" so I peruse the goods. You really can get everything you need here.
She says "Fred's on his way".
Wow.
Fred shows up. Tells me amazing stories about a family member who chose to stay with his house inside the evacuation area. The house got threatened three times, from three different directions. It's now burned out on all sides, except one -- the leeward. (Currently.)
It's a good interview. Lasts 14 minutes. Fred's very kind, and very sharing of everything that he knows.
The ladies inside the store are getting busy with the lunch rush but ask me when the story's gonna air. This is a common question, and the standard answer is "I can't say, for sure." This time, I confidently tell her in no uncertain terms "between five and seven tonight, not sure when, exactly".
Back to the station.
One rumour I heard from *several* people over the course of the day is that one of the reasons people aren't leaving their homes is because they want to fend off looters. One of 'em (who I won't name) even mentions the Torrance County Sheriff as a source, saying he'd arrested four people in the evacuation zone for looting. But the people on the ground -- evacuees and non-evacuees alike, aside from not knowing what's been burnt, are positively *buzzing* with stories of looters emanating from phone calls from behind the lines of the evacuation zone. What's going on in there is *anybody's* guess.
Now to do the things best done from a desk with a telephone.
I call the Torrance County Sheriff. The woman who answers the phone is genuinely *shocked* to hear what I'm asking about, hasn't heard anything about it. Gives me a number for Central Dispatch.
Central Dispatch says they haven't heard anything about that sort of thing but call such-and-such *different* number and ask to talk to the Public Information Officer (PIO).
I call at least three dozen times in rapid succession. Busy. Every time.
Finally call up the Bernalillo County Sheriff's office 'cause I've *also* heard that they were helping out. The person there who picks up the phone tells me she doesn't even know whether they're helping out in Torrance County but I should definitely talk to *that* Sheriff's PIO.
I do. *She* says they *are* helping, but haven't heard anything about arrests for looting and tells me I need to talk with the PIO from the State Forestry Division, and helpfully finds his number for me.
I call him. He doesn't know anything about looting, either, but says I should call the Forest Service's central Public Information Office instead since it's "their fire" (it's burning mostly on National, not State forest land).
I call the Federal Agency and dial the wrong number only to find out the poor woman on the other end of the phone has gotten *several* calls that same day asking her about a forest fire. She doesn't know anything about the forest fire, except that people keep calling up to ask about it. She runs a sign company. But she's very good-humoured about it.
I apologise to her -- it's clear that *I* was one digit off. Not the press release. Me. Apparently a bunch of other people were, as well.
I try the number again. I get right through on the first try. The Forest Service PIO hasn't heard anything about looting but says she'll make some calls on her end and get back to me.
Maybe half an hour later, she does. She tells *me* about the runaround *she* got and then gives me a number for -- Torrance County Sheriff's Central Dispatch -- the second number in this numbers game. Right? Wrong! She reads the first three digits. I read the last four back to her. Nope. I'm honestly not hopeful at this point, having already gotten one phone number wrong myself, but thank her, hang up, and try the number *she* gave me *anyway*. Central Dispatch in the Torrance County Sheriff's Department really *does* have *two* different phone numbers.
I get straight through.
The officer who answers tells me he'd heard from someone else just a few minutes before that someone was asking about looting (someone I'd asked about it, I'd bet) and tells me that the Sheriff *is* the PIO in Torrance County, and that while he's on the fire right now, if I'll give him my phone number he'll have him call me right away.
KICK ASS.
A few minutes later the phone rings and I *know* before I pick up who it is.
The Torrance County Sheriff (forgive me for not using everybody's name in writing this) tells me in no uncertain or wavering terms that he has received *no* reports of looting and has made *no* arrests in connection with reports of looting. He does explain he did make one unrelated arrest along the evacuation zone's northern boundary, and all but begs me to get the word out that the rumours of looting are just that -- rumours. He takes his time, answering questions, too. I forget to ask a few. But, heh, we're all hearing the wind and smelling the smoke.
Apparently rumours can spread like wildfire, too.
So -- *that* is a reporter's job as well. Or at least part of it. To check out every even slightly suspect fact. I could have "broken" a story about looters in the evacuation zone because I "liked" the people I was talking to, and the word would have spread back into the evacuation zone that the radio news was now reporting that the looters were in fact real. And people -- whether they were listening to me directly or not -- might have decided to stay with their homes in the face of the flames to protect against looters, since now they weren't just hearing it from their neighbours but on the news.
Those people inside the evacuation zone don't have the *luxury* of double-, triple-, and quadruple-checking everything they hear. I may be worn ragged, but damn it dude. That woman at the general store got me in touch with Fred. The least I can do is replicate her effort in my own way.
The leading headline for both hours is that the looting is a rumour.
There are also two amazing sound clips from Fred, for the benefit of everyone else who's not threatened by the fire, about his relative's story on the one hand, and about how "mountain people" (his term) live -- accepting that fire just "goes with the territory".
I read it live. Both hours. I *know* I sound a little tired. I am. But I feel good about what I have done. Who knows what it might accomplish.
The inappropriately comic moment this evening occurs when ten minutes to broadcast the AP wire sends out about six important stories I *don't* have anything worked up on.
I get interruped briefly while rewriting one, about a lobbyist representing the company that's building the uranium enrichment facility outside of Eunice having paid for the Attorney General's hotel in Holland.
Ever noticed how "l" and "o" on the one hand, and "k" and "i" on the other are *right* next to eachother on the keyboard?
Well, no, neither did I, at least until tonight, when I was on the air, reading a story about money in politics involving foreign countries and actually SAID ON AIR that such-and-such lobbyist representing such-and-such uranium company paid for 140 "dikkars" worth of *something* for the Attorney General.
Uhm. What!?
My brain goes off -- rapid-fire -- as I'm already reading the next sentence, which is all about uranium processing and commercial nuclear reactors. Even as I continue reading, I think -- "What's the foreign currency in Holland? Oh wait -- it's Guilders, isn't it? Or maybe now it's Euros? Dikkars? What the hell country is *that*? OH SHIT! THAT'S NOT A CURRENCY! THAT'S A TYPO!!!!!"
I chuckle a bit as I finish the story -- but quickly realize uranium's no laughing matter -- so I just move on.
NO APOLOGIES, BABY.
