Two brothers warmed themselves by the roaring brush fire. An inch of snow had fallen across the peninsula overnight–welcome precipitation during a dry winter that had followed a dry summer. They chuckled at the idea of global warming. Not in Maine. Not today. One of them pulled his collar close as a frigid gust moved the open-field stubble and fanned the flames.

A clump of leaves, semi-frozen but flammable, rose and floated, quietly settling into an ancient fir, laden with pitch-infused Witch’s Broom.

An hour passed.

It was the deer that told a neighbor something was amiss. Sure, he’d sniffed smoke when stepping outside with his morning coffee, but it was January and his woodstove was stoked to the max. He thought he counted eleven, but the herd was moving so fast it was hard to be sure. Over the rockwall they’d burst and dashed to the cove, skirting the shore and continuing south. He heard a deep growl, pops, and nearby explosions. His generator kicked in. At the far end of the meadow, a 30-foot billow of flame surged.

“Babe!” he called to his wife, “Get the kids, we need to move! NOW!”

Soon, the single road that delivered tourists in the summer was choked with desperate year-round residents fleeing south. The relentless northwind played tag with the blaze and abundant deadwood, distributing flaming embers ahead and fanning the heat to Bessemer-furnace intensity while pushing a dense wall of orange smoke.

The volunteer firefighters were cut off from one of their stations. It didn’t matter. The wildfire was moving so quickly and across such a broad front that they were powerless. The chief placed his crew at strategic intersections and gave them strict orders not to wait until they could feel the heat. He contacted the co-op and begged the manager to call out to any available fishermen and ask them to rendezvous at the town’s public landing.

The media hailed “The Maine Miracle” and “The Dunkirk Effect.” Neighbors called neighbors and the elderly were roused to action. Lobstermen and day-sailors created an armada, pulling to safety hundreds that gathered on makeshift floats at the peninsula’s southern tip.

The broad, open turf-grass of a golf course combined with some blueberry barrens to provide a momentary firebreak. Because of the chief’s quick action and the co-op’s radio work, only two lives were lost. The Coast Guard rescued a number of people who’d wrenched blue foam from stored floats and had clung to the jagged blocks, desperate to escape the flames. The peninsula that so many had called home for generations was a charred, barren husk.

Coastal Maine is not immune to the sort of devastation that is ravaging Los Angeles. We have only to look to Acadia in 1947. Now is the time for us to assess our public and personal fire-readiness: Should woodlands be thinned of deadwood? Do we have an open barrier between our structures and trees? Do we have a plan of escape? Will we be ready if the wildfire comes?