Of Smoke

RON MACKIE COULDN’T TAKE IT anymore. From His Home In Omak, Washington, he’d seen temperatures rise into triple digits, felt the hot, dry winds kick up every afternoon, and, despite the armada of U.S. Forest Service aircraft buzzing about, watched as the gray wall on the horizon stacked higher and higher into the sky.

Under that ominous smoke, four separate fires had combined into a single firestorm known as the Carlton Complex Fire (“complex” designates a series of fires coming together), burning 123,000 acres—twice the size of Seattle—in the previous nine hours.

Somewhere near the edge of the inferno, and 25 miles from Mackie’s front door, was Loup Loup Ski Bowl, the community ski area to which he had dedicated his last 46 years. Though the fire was spreading quickly over the hills of Okanogan County, in Central Washington, news of its steady march was not. The blaze had split the state’s largest county in half, and as uncertainty and dread curdled in his stomach, Mackie couldn’t wait any longer.

Jumping on his motorcycle, he ignored his wife’s pleas to stay put and powered toward the flames.

“I needed to know,” he said. “I needed to know if the Loup was still there.”

Fire personnel had closed the main roads heading toward Loup Loup Pass, but Mackie navigated around the blockade on dirt roads. When he finally did run into fire crews, he argued his way through—turning back wasn’t an option.

An eerie calm settled over the last empty stretch of Highway 20—the famous highway running over the pass and through North Cascades National Park. The familiar ashy stink crept into Mackie’s helmet, but the flames were still somewhere over the approaching ridgeline. Burning thick and moving at speeds greater than 60 mph, the fire sounded like a freight train, destroying acres of dry timber in minutes. He knew it could be less than an hour before the fire reached the