Today’s audio update
DAM ONE ROAD, MANDEVU, ZAMBIA—There is a haunting back story to the little-known film In the Blood, produced several years ago. George Butler, director of Pumping Iron and, most recently, a pair of Shackleton films, decided to film a tribute to African hunting. But mid-shoot, while using a brush fire to flush out wildlife, a not-uncommon practice, the fire went out of control, surrounded a game scout, and burned him to death.
I kept thinking of this scene as the wind kicked and the flames encircled us for a few hot and potentially deadly seconds as we swatted away at the flames.
Burning is a way of life in Africa. For much of the continent there are two seasons, the wet and the dry. Since time immemorial, Africans have burned in the dry for many reasons: to refortify thin or spent soil for another round of planting, to create charcoal for cooking, to light the way for a night crossing, to drive out animals to poach, to keep predators at bay while walking or camping, for retribution against property owners who fence in a place where land has traditionally been tribal, communal, and freely passable.
This is the end of the dry season in a drought year, and the tall grass used for thatching is tawny, brittle, and tinder dry. We begin the day with an early call from Chriss announcing no breakfast. Put on high boots and socks (no sandals) and get into the trucks … there is a wildfire to fight.
Fire is huge concern for Chriss, not only because it could spread and wipe out the camp, but because it can raze the natural habitat, chasing the wildlife off the protected property and into the arms of poachers. We trundle east down the Dam One Road for about 4 miles in pursuit of the burning bush. At the bottom of a parchment-colored hill we park, then thrash to the top. Off in the distance, along the next ridge, we see a whorl of smoke and make our way towards it. Chriss figures a fisherman started the burn while taking a shortcut through the property back to his village, but he admits there are half a dozen possibilities, including a disgruntled employee or a jealous neighbor. About halfway up we see Nicholas Kalembelembe, our nature guide, and a team of nine other Mandevu employees whacking away at ragged lines of fire with the leafed branches of the Combretum tree. With a crude ax Nicholas cuts off a series of 4-foot branches for us, and it’s clear what we’re supposed to do.
We fan out and start beating at the fire, which seems to cover a couple of acres of lion-colored grasslands. We learn quickly the two most effective strokes: a strong top-down spank, which momentarily snuffs out the oxygen, or a power golf swing that drives the flames back into the seared area. Both work on flames less than a foot high, but when a gust sends a flame higher, we step back and wait for the wind to take a breath, then begin bashing again. Together we work our way around the furious periphery. At some hot spots, clusters of square-tailed drongers and lilac-breasted rollers hover above the flames, catching fleeing insects in the thermals.
After an hour, we snuff the last flame, take a few triumphant pictures of faces streaked with soot, and head down the hill for a well-deserved breakfast. There is something primally satisfying about fighting a fire and winning before breakfast. I can taste the coffee and bacon.
But 3 miles from camp Chriss jolts to a stop and points up a ridge. Another dark cloud of smoke is spiraling skyward, and Chriss commands us to get out. We arm ourselves with a new set of tree branches and trudge up the rise to a necklace of low flames.
It’s just after 9 a.m., and the first heat of the day stirs the wind. In short order we snuff out the lower reaches of this second fire, but as we work our way to the top the wind nudges the flames higher—several times we almost contain the burn, but whenever we’ve just about got it collared, it leaps around, crackles, snickers at us, then blasts on. We fight for another hour, hot, thirsty, exhausted, but the fire is speeding ahead of us, devouring the wheatlike grass like a herd of hungry horses. Finally, Chriss calls us down for a regroup. “This is an exercise in futility. We need a different tactic. We’ll go to the Dam One Road and back burn.”
Just after the rains, in June, with some moisture still in the grass, Chriss had made controlled burns across the farm just to avoid this type of conflagration. But now this blaze was leaping over the fire lines with impunity. The road could be the last stand to keep this fire from running west, to our camp on the Luangwa River.
Down at the road, Chriss and Justin take clumps of grass, light them, and spread them along the dry sward at the edge of road. The hope is the back burn (or side burn, in this case, as we’re on the long frame of the fire) will move toward the fire and stop it in its tracks with nothing to consume. But with a burst of wind the plan backfires, and the back burn flies across the road and, fanned by an increasing wind, becomes a towering inferno. We all jump back, then attack the edges, smoke tearing our eyes. We’re coughing and clubbing the flames, making little progress. Chriss, as a bush-version Red Adair, takes a team to the fire front, where another road transects, and begins another back burn. For three hours we battle the fire on different fronts, retreating for slugs of water and brief rests under winterthorns, then back into the fray. The landscape, which yesterday was filled with thick, elephant-eye-high grass and woodlands, now looks napalmed—charred and barren, with blue smoke drifting like a deadly gas along the ground.
By mid-afternoon everyone is fatigued and starved, throats burning from the smoke. But it seems we have stomped out the last flames on both ends. Once again we pile into the Toyotas, lusting for breakfast, but Chriss wants one last look at the perimeter before declaring victory. We drive back to where we started and see more smoke—the fire we thought we had snuffed is back, so we drag ourselves through the sharp grass up the knoll for another go. Everyone is spent, utterly bushed, but this looks like it could be the closing round. So we swat some more, coughing in air thick with motes of ash, struggling with each swing. Then Chriss yells, “Man down … we’ve got a man down,” and I imagine one of our group engulfed and burned. Halfway down the hill, where the final flames had been licking, someone is lying on the ground.
It’s Desmond Rabinowitz, the trip pediatrician, probably the fittest man among us, looking 20 years younger than his 53. He had stomped out the last of the embers and was heading up the valley when a sudden dizziness hit. Des has Type 1 diabetes, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and he had been figuring throughout the day, as had the rest of us, that we would be back for breakfast soon, where he would refuel on natural sugar. He was carrying a Luna Bar, as he does whenever exercising, and pulled it from his pocket, peeled back the wrapper, and took a bite—but it was too late. Down he went. Chriss heads back to fetch the Land Cruiser, while Justin and others minister to Des, hydrating him, covering him in shade. For a few chilling minutes Des doesn’t speak, won’t respond to questions or comments, just licks his dry lips. Justin finds the Luna Bar beneath his back, cleans it, and feeds it to Des, who begins to recover. By the time the Land Cruiser rumbles over the scorched earth towards us, Des is back on his feet.
An hour later at 4 p.m. we’re at camp, ready for a shower and breakfast. The fire, which Chriss estimates burned 5,000 acres, or 10 percent of the farm, is dead. For now …
Check back Monday for the next dispatch from Zambia.
