top of page

Fire in the Hills. Burns on the Prairies.

Writer's picture: Green Iowa AmeriCorpsGreen Iowa AmeriCorps

Nick Blocha


I text a mental list of friends and acquaintances still in Northern Los Angeles. The Palisade fires of California encroach on their apartments, ignite the hills, and blacken the air now filled with burnt gas of asbestos and other chemicals which lingered in the old buildings that make up the majority of the infrastructure on the hills and valley where I lived for a year. My building certainly still had asbestos in the basement and car park. The ravenous winds blew smoke and ash, keeping fire crews of trained and prison laborers from being able to take actions against the flames.


I’m glad I’m not there now. LA wasn’t good for me at the time, and I was glad to leave when I did, but the news rages on in my mind as the cold, quiet Iowan night steadily continues like our mostly frozen inlets and streams. Notifications buzz that black bar and white text across my screen: images and video from those on the front, pictures posted on Instagram from my friends, words saying they’ve evacuated for the night. They’re safe. Some, I don’t hear from. I sit with myself and the silence of the present darkness. I know what causes wildfires.


During my three-month stint last spring with the Northwest Youth Corps, a conservation corps in the Pacific Northwest, my team deployed to the valleys outside of Eugene, Oregon to fight invasives in riparian areas along the McKenzie River for two weeks. The valleys had been thrashed by the Holiday Farm Fire of 2020. Some areas had regrown, but still, in April of 2024, daily we drove past the trees burned black on one side, the side the winds came from and rushed in the flames. 40% of the people who had lived there, most of whom this was their first, only, and permanent home, remain living there. The rest couldn’t afford to rebuild, nor recover for lack of insurance and lack of insurance payouts if they had any. I saw the same pattern in Spencer that July. Fire protection policies across Los Angeles County were also cancelled by providers not long ago.


In the morning, my friends return to their apartments – those which still stand - and I return to work, booting up the online wildland fire S-130 training I’m nearly done with. I’ll only be working on a few, small, controlled burns here on campus, but still it’s required. I wear my blaze orange beanie not as a hunter, as is common here, but for the flames licking away. Oddly, it all helps me process the change happening to where I was in 2023. Live updates ping my phone, steadily slowing into silence as my friends are there, doing what they need to do, and I am here. Fire isn’t always a bad thing. Fire is necessary. This issue of such vigorous and deadly wildfires which rage out of control against the land, life, and air is due partially to our stifling of the smaller, once natural burns, as well as the region’s severe lack of water. We build and then want to protect our space. Naturally. But fire is supposed to burn on occasion. If allowed to on occasion, fire will be small and contains a vital ingredient for the self-sustainability of the ecosystems they visit.


On the grasslands of Iowa, many oak seeds need fire to open and sprout. Oaks evolved to be resilient and resistant to the damage of flame. We are not so. This is the reality of our climate on our world. We know why this is happening. This is a reason among many why I am here. This is a reason among many why I am working on what I do, and greatly why I pivoted from my decade-long primary pursuit of a career in the entertainment industry. If you’re reading this, it’s proof I haven’t, and won’t, give up on telling the story. I’ve been working since I was 16 in the arts, service, and occasionally labor or education industries. Now I’m 26, soon to turn 27. I’m an artist, I’m an organizer, I’m an environmentalist, and I am here getting things done.


 

About The Author

Nick Blocha is serving as a Land and Water Steward via Green Iowa AmeriCorps at the Iowa Lakeside Labs (ILL) in Milford, Iowa. Sister lab to the state hygienists in Iowa City, ILL analyzes water samples from around the state, hosts researchers and students, artists and writers, and aids in a number of environmental and community efforts with a multitude of partnering organizations and government agencies.

With a background in the arts and storytelling, and as a long-time environmental enthusiast, Nick grew up as a barefoot hippie in the woods of North Carolina and Atlanta, and values the service they can provide and assist with via the GIA program. Nick seeks to focus on the spaces where human society and nature intersect and coexist in harmony.

28 views

Related Posts

See All
Green-Iowa-Logo-Solid-Green-01.png

Green Iowa AmeriCorps

University of Northern Iowa | Center for Energy & Environmental Education

8106 Jennings Dr, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0293​

Email: greeniowaamericorps@uni.edu

Phone: (319) 273-7233

Navy AmeriCorps Logo.png
CEEERGB Horizontal Primary.png
icvsgivebackiowa.png
bottom of page