Flashback to the Derby Fire

It's been just over a year now since that fateful night when the Derby Fire tripled in size to over 200,000 acres and, almost instantaneously, blackened the entire Stillwater Valley and changed things there forever. While things are still nowhere near what we all remember "home" looking like, for those of us who didn't get burned out, home it remains.


A lot has changed since last year, yet so many things have remained the same. Houses that were mere smoldering holes in the ground 12 months ago are popping up again, larger than before, while grass and weeds have grown over the places where others used to lie. People who used to be called friends, no longer come to visit, bitter that our home stands while their cabin does not. And oh the tourists, a danger to all of us, are everywhere still, coming up to catch a glimpse of the landscape, blackened. They nearly drive off of the road, at 15 miles per hour even, because they're too busy gawking to pay attention to the road or the cars of locals behind them, trying to ignore the changed scenery, anxious to get home.

If the above sounds a bit bitter on my part, I must admit that it's because I am, a little. We fared far better than many others, and for that I am eternally thankful, but it's hard to let go of the fact that one of the most beautiful places on earth, one that I am lucky enough to call "home," is not how I remember it.
In time, I know that the change will become less devastating and that tiny trees will eventually blossom into the great big trees that I played under as a little one. Until then, I'll hold onto the memories of what used to be and keep looking forward, way into the future, to the day when home and the Stillwater Valley is, once again, one of the most beautiful places on earth.