Charles McKeithan

The Tale of the Flaming Bunny Rabbit

In the late 1980’s I spent some time paying for my sins in the California Youth Authority. I found the most freedom I could by working with the California Department of Forestry as a Hand crew Fire fighter. Cutting fire line is one of the most back breaking jobs on the planet for which we got an incredible one dollar an hour to sweat grunt, and scrape our way through mile after mile of the most beautiful burning forests in the State. That sounds like a complaint on the pay, but compared to most prison jobs at 10 cents an hour, we were high and mighty.

Before I get to the meat of the tale (pun only mildly intended) I should explain for the uninformed that cutting line is the basic building block of forest fire fighting. In the flat lands and the low hills, they bring in bull dozers to bust out the sides of hills fast and safe, but there is an awful lot of land that no machine can get to on wheel or tread. Enter the hand crew. 15 men and or boys, each with an assigned tool. You start as number fifteen and as the guys in front of you either get injured or parole, you work your way up the line to the ultimate goal: Lead Chain Saw. The first four men work saw. One and Two cut the trees and the branches with deft strokes from a chainsaw that felt light for the first two hours but gets to lead weight after that until the tenth hour when it suddenly stops weighing anything. They make a broad path in the forest. How wide depends on how bad the fire is and how tall the trees are. Most lines are somewhere between ten and twenty feet wide. Three and Four are the pullers. No tools. Just a gas can and thick gloves to reach within inches of spinning Texas massacre and pull the remains of hundreds of years of old growth too be tossed off into the Green. (Important note: Green is the unburned side of the path, Burn is the side sacrificed to the fire God) Five through ten are Pulaski cutters. A half-breed between a pick axe and a wood axe. Each man chops and hacks at his two to four foot section bringing out roots and small bushes. Eleven through fourteen carry McLeods. A hard edged rake that combs the grass out then scrapes to bare dirt. The last man at the end is the CYA Guard. With his shovel, he touches up the newly made road and assures the crew that running back down the hill will not gain freedom half as fast as fighting your way to the front.

We were twenty three hours into a line. With a couple of half hour breaks to chow down Scooby snacks and refill canteens that had refreshingly luke warm water that the ambient temp, left ready to make instant coffee if you wanted it, but luke warm is crystal sweet when the temp on the outside of the flame retardant Nomax suit is over a hundred. This particular fire was especially dangerous because we were cutting through Manzanita Bush. This red California native only grows to about five foot tall but it is so full of flammable sap that you can burn a pile all day, adding bush after bush for hours on end, and at the end of the day all that is left of the pile is a thin line of white ash in a ring around where the bushes once lay in piles.

We had just stopped for a ten minute breather and as I sank to the ground and shut down my saw, I checked to be sure my shake and bake was still on my belt. I had never had to use it but this little one man tinfoil shack was the last ditch defense in case of being over run by fire. It reflects most of the heat from the fire back outward, so if you can keep it locked over you and pinned to the ground, you have a 30% chance of not being slow roasted to death trying to out last the burning universe around you. With five minutes to go before start up, I tore down my saw and sharpened the chain with a hand file. We had just met up with a Dozer line on the other side of a ridge and were looking forward to a twenty minute march back to the fire camp and meal that would make Atkins himself stand on ear. Steak steak and more steak was the order of the day. The world is good to the man who just saved miles of land from a charred cinderhood.

Just as I finished clamping the cover back over the gears in my saw, one of the crew pointed out something moving in the burn. Not too unusual. We often caught Snakes and such making a last ditch run for freedom after waking up to the smell of burnt everything. Then, out of the branches and foliage, comes the last thing I expected to see: a bunny rabbit. I instantly thought of the vile monster from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This was that guy’s twin. Cute, fluffy and white. Seemingly harmless. But it had obviously seen better Sunday afternoons. It was scorched and had patches missing here and there where the fire had left its brand. A twig of embers seemed fused to some part of the underside as it struggled on in its gain for freedom. It made its way past silent and unmoving men who could very much relate with the struggle to just make it one more day till freedom calls, and of into the green it continued.

We were silent and still for a moment, then as one, began to gather our things and prepare for the march back to camp. After a few hours rest, we would likely be put on spot watch duty. Sentries placed to be sure that when the fire hit the hand lines, sparks and embers didn’t make there way to the other side and force the whole project to begin again.

Suddenly, the look in my fire Captains eye drew my attention. My eyes followed to where he was staring with amazed alarm. Three thin lines of smoke had sprouted in the green and a fourth was forming in a direct line further away. With all the fury of a general calling his platoon to the charge, he shouted “GET THAT FUCKING RABBITT”!

I did what anyone would do. After a day straight of cutting line, you don’t think, you get to work. I grabbed my tool and ran. The humor of the moment did not reach me until much later. Running through the underbrush like a madman with a chainsaw in pursuit of a flaming bunny rabbit. By the time I reached it, it had breathed its last and I chuckled as I stood over my prey. Quiet a sight, I must have been. Saw grumbling and whining. Dirt and sweat and soot covering every inch of me, with that little fluffy bit of death at my feet like a prize trophy.

I heard the sarcastic applause of my fellow crew members behind me and turned to flip them the bird. The applause roared into a concert hall crescendo as my eyes readjusted to the reality of the situation. Those little puffs of smoke I had passed in my wild pursuit had ripened and grown and now a wall of flame stood between me and the last fourteen people I would see on this earth. I could not hear them over the din of the blaze but they seemed to be waving.

Waving to come back? Waving goodbye?

I had no other choice, I revved up the saw and speed cleared a ten foot area around me and my little dead rodent friend. Tossing the saw aside, I pulled out the shake and bake and unfolded it as the flames hit the edge of my miniature circle of hope. The Tent is designed with four little cuffs, two for toes and two for hands, to hold down the thin foil as close to the ground as you can. It was also made for average men and my six foot two frame was not finding much in the way of how to lose seven inches of length fast.
All was dark and heat and noise under my canopy. Hot like when you have to reach into the stove to pull out a roast, with only half a pot warmed to keep the grill from peeling away your skin. No. hotter.

Now the Fire Gods were getting warmed up. When fire takes over, it takes over everything. The convection heat had created a wind just special for me and an unnamed god or demon was grabbing and pulling at the tent, trying to catch me off guard and bring me home to hell. My right foot stirrup was starting to tear and all the oven dried air was disappearing from my world. A hollow boom informed me that my chainsaw was not going to give me two weeks notice, but rather was quitting right now and in a very final and violent way.

I didn’t remember seeing any five hundred foot tall oak trees in the field of manzanita when we were working, but when my world went flat, it was the only answer I could come up with. A last horrendous boom preceded the heaviest blow I had ever known and suddenly I couldn’t move or feel or think.

The heat seemed to be gone

With a lung wrenching gasp I tried to suck in air, but couldn’t seem to get my throat to work with my lungs and mouth. Everyone had different ideas of how this was all supposed to happen. Maybe that was death. Heck, it’s not like anyone has ever really shared the experience so maybe any minute I would have to stand before God and start explaining about the whole chainsaw vs. bunny rabbit thing. I was not looking forward to the response.

Then I started hurting again and my ears seemed to think there were goings on out on the Other Side. I didn’t think I could be dead and still hurt all over so I risked lifting a hand. That hurt too. But it did lift. The throat had finally made peace with my lungs and they were working hard together to get the mouth to come over to their side, so I decided to lift the edge of my tent and see what there was to see.

Pink.

Everywhere was pink.

Pink remains of chainsaw, pink charred bushes, pink soot. Pink goo dripped from pink branches to pools of pink collecting around me.

Pink dead rabbit.

Okay, not dead, just utterly insane. I lifted the tent and hauled myself up to my knees. The whole god-damn world had turned to pink elephant snot... Off behind me I heard a snort. Then a chuckle that dribbled into laughter, Fifteen pink men stood back about a hundred yards pointing at me, then at each other and remaining totally unsuccessful at containing their humor. I was in fact, the only thing around that was NOT covered in this alien goo. Then it finally dawned on me. Air support.

My fire captain had called in an emergency air strike. 20,000 gallons of water laced with iron oxide based fire retardant had been dropped across my back, and the backs of the whole damn country side. My captain ambled his way across the remains of the field and, wiping pink from his eyes looked down. “Shame about the saw”.

“Yeah…sorry. But I got the Rabbit.”

Posted by cmckeithan at August 9, 2004 02:26 AM