Wildfire lyrics

To view a horizon smoke filled

As if the world were afire

From afar so distant, so astounding

Like the looming rapture's edge

Coming ever closer, ever menacing

The aircraft await an army aerial

Smokejumpers in force push in

With kit and courage heaven bound

Off to uncertainty and design

Windward and leeward changing

The fire makes its own weather

And prediction means survival

Guts and glory have their place

But discipline and training make

They mean getting it done alive

Make the best of the downward

For amid the trees is disorienting

Their tops as though candlesticks

'Tween smoky haze lingering

And hell's fiery glow so intense

An inferno Dante would not know

The resounding bursts of furs green

As their sap boils up with the trunk

Exploding shards of bark and branch

There's such catastrophic confusion

The wildlife lie incinerated or dying

Those that could not flee, doomed

Through burnbacks and firelines

Hauling a Pulaski and kit to live

Relentless heats pounds down

Relief and water scarce there

Precipitation is red retardant

From winged clouds blaring above

In the most intense firestorms

Can spin up fire whirls enormous

Blazing cyclones malevolent

The winds of thermal difference

Give birth to an insatiable force

That consumes all it touches

The only containment, the cause

When its sought fuel is exhausted

This predator omnipotent tires

All pray for a cold front to come

For its appearance brings relief

Moisture dear and rain defeating

Direct attacks by nature and man

To knock down this raging beast

Its roaring voice made silent

Its containment seems eternity

Those perils of knocking it down

Time to rest and rehab once again

Like many natural forces savage

There gains a productive purpose

That disregards humanity too

The clutter and the kept decay

Are brought down to ash and soot

That rejuvenated this old earth

The terrain like a haunted forest

Across a wasteland black and grey

Seeds below bulge to be born anew

In a short while after the smoldering

The disaster will bring intense green

And life will prosper here once again