Newest Victims of Climate Change: Notes From a Wildfire RefugeeNewest Victims of Climate Change: Notes From a Wildfire Refugee

All of us evacuees now share something. Suddenly we talk openly about being victims of climate change.

July 3, 2012

The sheriff’s call came at 3:30 a.m.:  Leave immediately.  Luckily, my wife, SueEllen, and I were already up, grabbing passports, photos, dog food, wall hangings from Thailand and Zanzibar.  A neighbor had called earlier, warning us that flames were coming fast out of the western foothills, driven by searing winds that transformed our backyard windmill blades into a silver blur.

I’d gone to bed knowing that a wildfire was crackling in the high country beyond our beautiful valley near Fort Collins, Colo., and threatened the mountain school where kids sometimes rode horses to class.  Still, that school was seven miles away from us, as the sparks fly.

But those sparks were flying like mad, making the fire bound forward a quarter-mile at a time. As we drove off, the foothills seemed to be full of erupting volcanoes –– volcanoes on the move.

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