Fire Monks
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228 Members of the incident management team told me: Retired IC Bill Molumby and CAL FIRE unit chief Rick Hutchinson (who replaced George Haines, also retired). Molumby and Hutchinson both worked in unified command on the Indians and Basin Complex fires.
229 For fear of being sued: In a November 11, 2006, article on www.dailybulletin.com, IC Dietrich pointed to Public Law 107-203 as the reason why “every Forest Service employee who’s in a management position should have professional liability insurance.” The 2002 legislation (sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, and Representative Doc Hastings, a Republican, both from Washington) requires an independent investigation when a USFS firefighter dies in a burnover or entrapment. Arguing that citizens have the right to protect their properties “when nobody else will” at a Big Sur community meeting in August 2008, Micah Curtis, whose brother Ross was arrested on July Fourth, protested: “Prosecuting commanders who lose people is crazy! Firefighting is dangerous. They don’t tell these cops not to go into East L.A.” Transcript available at http://www.kusp.org/fire/sur.html.
230 Given a sense of responsibility: Ted Marshall, Tassajara fire marshal in 1977, told me that the policy of having the abbot be the responsible leader “needs to be soberly addressed. We need to be able to entrust the most capable person to lead a firefighting effort to do just that.” Marshall acknowledged the importance of the abbot’s position but said it is “not to be confused with the right person to accomplish any and all tasks.” Ted Putnam and Karl Weick would agree (see note, chapter 11, “Organizing for Mindfulness”): “expert decision making can arise spontaneously where it is needed most and is independent of rank, position, or expectations.”
232 Creator of the Sitting with Ginger mock blog: Alec Henderson, http://sittingwithginger.blogspot.com/.
234 Firefighter Andrew Palmer: Details from Accident Investigation: Factual Report, July 25, 2008, at www.nps.gov.
237 Donations poured in: Revenue shortfalls from the guest season and expenses generated by the fire were compensated for by insurance payments and generous donations from sangha members. “We came out ahead,” said Zen Center president Robert Thomas, “and we were trying to get there because we were anticipating a shortfall due to the fire for the following guest season.” That expected shortfall did occur, and continuing fire-related repairs and building expenses chipped away at the surplus until the fire was “pretty much a wash”—in financial terms, at least.
June 25. Residents say good-bye at the work circle after being ordered to evacuate. Only fourteen would stay behind.
June 28. Simon Moyes sets up Dharma Rain on the bathhouse roof.
July 1. CAL FIRE captains Dave “Spanky” Nicolson (far left) and Stuart Carlson (right) confer over maps with Tassajara student fire marshal Devin Patel.
Water pumped from Tassajara Creek fed the Dharma Rain sprinklers throughout the fire.
July 2. Resident Bryan Clark looks up the Tassajara Creek watershed from Hawk Mountain. Almost two weeks after the lightning strikes, flames had not been spotted yet from within Tassajara.
Tassajara director David Zimmerman (left) gives Basin Complex fire branch commander Jack Froggatt (in yellow) and Abbot Steve Stücky a tour of the residents’ fire preparations on July 2.
July 9. Head cook Mako Voelkel and fellow residents leave Tassajara during the final evacuation. But Mako and four others would return within the hour.
July 10. Flames descend from Flag Rock, above the zendo, into Tassajara.
A dragon of fire near the confluence of Tassajara and Church creeks. This photo of the advancing fire front was taken at dusk on the evening of July 9, a few hours before flames closed the road, cutting off access to Tassajara.
Graham Ross, Mako Voelkel, David Zimmerman, Steve Stücky, and Colin Gipson—“the Tassajara Five”—posed for this portrait after facing the flames for six straight hours.
July 14. Abbot Steve Stücky and Colin Gipson clean the Buddha after unburying the statue from the bocce ball court. This 2,000-year-old Gandharan relic had previously been restored after being damaged in the 1978 zendo fire.
Cartoonist Tom Meyer’s take on what it means to be a fire monk.
July 26. Sixteen days after the fire’s passage, Shundo David Haye hikes the Tony Trail, surveying the bare ridges and burnt brush left behind.
This wooden plaque, called a han, hangs outside the zendo and is struck to call residents to meditation.
Stripped of vegetation four days after the 2008 fire, Tassajara Road appears even more isolated and exposed than usual.
Tassajara Road in May 2009, nearly one year later. This photo was taken from Ashes Corner, where five priests turned around during the final evacuation to stay at Tassajara and meet the fire.