Ever seen a big fire in person?

[Murfdog]

8. The earth shook

I’ve seen wildfire, too close. Well in the lead of firefighters racing up an Idaho mountainside to build a fire line , on foot , I suddenly and unexpectedly came upon another fire crew working in a forested alpine basin at the base of a scree slope. Standing a moment to catch my breath, in the course of maybe two minutes max, the ambient smoke increased exponentially, couldn’t see 50 ft then in the span of moments all the smoke settled around my feet, the forest canopy above the crew in the cirque spontaneously combusted, then ground began to shake and the fabled and hard to believe freight train roar came up the mountain. Holy shit. We all escaped, somehow.