Newlines | 08/19/2021
This year’s wildfires in Turkey are framed as a war to win. I joined a volunteer disaster response team — and saw neither war nor victory
heard the sound of the flames, like crashing waves, only after we were ordered to evacuate the scene. Until then, the sound had been drowned out by walkie talkies, running motors, beeping excavators, and the footsteps and shouts of about 200 people who had come to help tame the wildfire. We had already walked, single file, a few hundred meters along the gravel road and reached the firetrucks when the winds started blowing in our direction. About halfway back, we stopped and the field hushed. Everyone ogled the flames, tall even from our distance, pumping whirls of smoke so high that I couldn’t see the black sky unless I tilted my head all the way up. We could do nothing but let it burn.
I remembered the words of one of our team leaders: “Think of this as a war.” We must study and be ready for every move. This metaphor worked for the wildfires most of the time, and I found myself extending it to help make sense of the situation.
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Naomi Cohen | journalist 