Daily log: 2. 23. 3005

I had never in my life seen a wildfire. Shortly after lunch, I was given an idea of the severity that goes along with a fire. While Jim and I were vigorously sketching away at the plot lay out, we smelled smoke. Then it seemed as if all of a sudden everyone started yelling, climbing out of the pit, and running towards the rice fields. At first Jim and I just stood there, shocked by all of the commotion and yelling in Thai. A few minutes later we emerged from the pit, and made our way down to where the smoke was coming from. I don't think anyone had any idea of how intense the fire was, but it became more obvious the closer we came to it.

The road that led down to the fields is only about a couple of hundred feet long, which means the rice fields are right next to the houses. The houses in that area are made mostly of wood and cement. This meant that water needed to be brought down to the fire as soon as possible, so Jim and I hurried back to the site, found a dozen buckets and started filling them with water. Everyone was running up and down the road carrying buckets and buckets filled with water. Luckily I had my camera on me at the time, and I was able to snap a few photographs of the people, the smoke, and the effort being made to stop the fire.

This part of Thailand has been without rain for 5 months, which means everything here is bone dry. This meant that the fire was spreading quickly and going towards the houses. Nim, our truck driver, pulled the truck up to the area where the buckets were being filled with water, placing the buckets in the back of the truck and then driving them down to the areas of the field that needed the water. This was so much better than everyone running back and forth up the road, which was taking a little bit of time. After Nim came to pick up the second round of buckets, I hopped on to the truck and drove down to the fires with him. I was absolutely amazed at how far spread the fire was. From where we first saw the fire you couldn’t tell that it was actually surrounding most of the village.

Luckily with the help of everyone, the fire was stomped out, but it was just incredible to think about how quickly someone’s life can go up in flames. The majority of the people in the village rely on the rice fields as a source of income and food, so it really puts into perspective on the situation they were all in.

For hours after the fire was put out the air was still heavy with smoke and little flecks of ash were blowing with the wind. It felt so nice to be able to lend a hand to the people that were bringing the buckets, filling them up, and splashing them onto the flames. Everyone lent a hand and it was amazing that a little bit of team work and frantic running around can put an end to a fire which could have potentially gotten a whole lot more serious.

I know this log is a slight tangent to the usual science based daily logs, but I thought everyone should know how fragile the land in Thailand is. Tomorrow’s log will be more about the work that's being done. :-)

Peace,

Jamie