Friday afternoon we all sat down to lunch and I thought I heard a truck pulling up. The noise just stayed in the background, what was the truck idling 20 feet away? No it was a forest fire. Everyone jumped up and ran over to that side of the farm. The fire was in the forest about 15 m from the farm. We grabbed shovels hoes and a sickle and started doing what we could. We were cutting down the tall grass and digging to create a dirt divide. Luckily some folks were thinking ahead. Ashley called the folks from Pun Pun and You Sabai (the two neighboring permaculture farms) and soon we had about 20 more people helping (to add to our 10). Everyone was digging and cutting as much as they could. I did get quite tired as hoeing is hard to do continuously but we took turns with the various tools and all did what we could. Luckily the Thai folks from Pun Pun had some experience and told us where to concentrate our efforts. They also lit some fires to try to burn back to the big fire and put it out by denying it combustibles. We also filled a huge bucket with water and brought it to Christians house (the closest house to the flame) so we could prevent the thatch from being engulfed in flame if a spark landed on it. Wow being a firefighter is hard work. Then a wonderful turn of events. Kay had gone to ask a local farmer to bring his tractor over and help. He plowed a path all the way around the farm. Yea for machinery.
It was intense and a hard day but in the end I just reveled in the tight community we have here. No one batted an eye they just all jumped up to help whether they were living at Baan Thai or not. Many people offered advice and labor and no one left until the work was done. We even had help moving the bricks so the tractor could get through. Disaster was avoided and all is well. However I am thinking a lot about the regular practice of “controlled fires”.