Small Calamities

Your Calamities

The Horizon Burned Like Heaven
January 15, 2006 | permalink

When I was seventeen, we were living on a small farm in Sullivan County, in New York State. And I do mean small... we didn't even produce enough to be self sufficient, let alone make a living at it. It was more like a sideline (albiet a very labor intensive one), a longtime dream of my father's. We had fresh milk, eggs and cheese, and a couple of acres of garden. And of course, every once in a while one of the chickens or rabbits ended up as dinner.

One hazy evening in late summer there was a particularly spectacular sunset. I called back into the house to get someone else to see what I was seeing. It was gorgeous. It was like the world was on fire. After a few minutes, it became clear that this is exactly what was happening- something big was burning, just over the horizon. We hopped in the car and headed west. It didn't take long to find. The barn at the Hewitts' horse farm was completely engulfed.

Have you ever been near a really big fire? It is beautiful. And terrifying. The light from it, all orange and yellow, must have been visible for twenty miles in every direction... maybe further, on account of the haze in the air. The sound of it was a great rushing roar, deafening, like a waterfall and a hurricane together. Underneath the roaring, you could hear the wood cracking and popping, like in a fireplace. Only instead of small logs, the things popping and cracking were twelve inch beams. It was like gunfire.

The heat of it was like nothing I have ever seen, before or since. We couldn't get closer than two hundred feet, and even there it was uncomfortably hot, leaving us ruddy cheeked, like wind burn, for the next couple of days. Trees seventy and eighty feet away burned like candles, and the fence for the barnyard smoldered and smoked, even though it was a hundred fifty feet away. The fury of it all was incredible, and humbling.

The horses, by the way, were all in the far pasture, and safe. It was long suspected (but never proved) that Hewitt set the fire himself for the insurance. Everyone knew that he was going under, financially, and that he loved his horses like children. They were always in their stalls by sunset. Except that night. He always maintained that he got held up on his way back to put them in (he arrived at the fire after we did), but I don't think anyone ever really believed him.