Between the Ears: California Burning

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California Burning

BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, California Burning

High above the giant sequoias, poet Kim Addonizio shadows Jack Kerouac as a fire watcher.

Jack Kerouac inspires poet Kim Addonizio to spend time as a forest fire watcher - scanning for smoke from a lookout tower high above the giant sequoias of California.

"Out in the forest the ember waits in its cigarette to make its black mark on the world, not content to ravage a few rolled tobacco leaves. It wants to show it can murder more trees than the last bitter fire."    
Kim Addonizio - Exit Opera

When wildfires turned the sky over San Francisco orange, poet Kim Addonizio began to fear for the future of the California she loves. In the footsteps of Jack Kerouac, who spent a season as a fire lookout, she heads for the National Sequoia Forest to spend a night in a fire lookout tower high above the tree-line.  

"I came to a point when I needed solitude, and just stop the machine of thinking and living. They say in ancient scriptures wisdom can be only obtained from solitude."
 Jack Kerouac - Desolation Angels

There used to be over 10,000 lookouts scattered across the USA,  but in the 1960s and 70s they began to fall out of use. Today they are coming back into use as the fire service needs every tool in their toolbox - and despite its toughness, it is a job often done by women, straining their experienced eyes into a network of early warning systems. 

Kim learns the skills of a fire lookout from Mich Michigian and Kathryn Allison, who have watched fires rage and lightning explode from the relative safety of a tiny lookout tower, perched on a gigantic granite outcrop called Buck Rock. Scanning the horizon every 15 minutes, the job is to report ‘smokes’ -  and when the lightning gets too close, to run inside and sit on the ‘lightning stool’ until the storm passes.

Jack Kerouac was less interested in fire, and more into Buddhism. In search of enlightenment, he headed to the Cascade Mountains, and the look-out on Desolation Peak. Poet Neeli Cherkovski reveals how after his initial delight, and without the crutch of drugs and liquor, he found the isolation tormenting.

“Desolation adventure finds me finding at the bottom of myself abysmal nothingness - worse than that, no illusion even - my mind's in rags.”

Inspired by these fire watchers, Kim Addonizio considers an inferno-like future of mega-fires, even giga-fires, whilst keeping an eye out for lightning strikes, fireworks, anything that could spark a fire, high in her lookout tower above the forest. 

Exit Opera by Kim Addonizio
Readings by Daniel Caron 
Musical inspiration by Danny Webb

With thanks to the Buck Rock Foundation. 

Produced by Sara Jane Hall
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 3

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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