I flame, I scorch, I smolder and smoke.
I can make you hot and I can make you choke.
Because of the above I often get a bad name,
But the real truth is, new growth is my game.
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire! (This chant is spoken between all but the last 2 verses and the italicized fire is whispered between the spoken fires, in a call and response style…the leader says fire and the responder whispers it).
When I’m full of myself, and the forest’s on fire,
My thick, smoky clouds build higher and higher.
I look pretty fierce with my sparks blowing round
Driving out the critters as I race across the ground.
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
But I can be a sneak as well, just see if I can’t
By creeping through the bushes like an army of ants,
Gobbling up the underbrush and licking up the bark
Of cedars and pines and leaving my mark.
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
But after I’m finished, just take a second look
And lo and behold, Mother Nature starts to cook
By letting all the tougher trees start greening way up high
Even though they looked like they were starting to die!
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
That larch tree, for instance, whose bark is so tough
That I can’t always kill it though I huff and I puff,
It might look dead, but in a very little while
It puts out new needles and I swear it even smiles!
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
I also do a favor for the lodge-pole pine
Whose cones need a really hot kick in the behind
To heat them up and dry them out to open and spew
Their tiny little seeds into my new soil stew.
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
I mix ash into the soil and I burn away some trees
I like to think I kind of set the sunlight free!
Plants need photosynthesis that’s triggered by the sun
So space for light to reach the ground is Item Number One!
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
If you hike the hills of Glacier where I burned up all those pines,
You need to take a closer look and learn to read the signs.
Just check out all the fireweed and huckleberries, too,
And notice how the bears and deer and birds of every hue,
Are feasting on the berries and are grazing on the grass,
That since I burned some trees away can ripen very fast.
So now you know my ‘other side,’ the part that brings rebirth
And how my burning helps replenish life upon this Earth!
I’m fire, fire, fire, fire!
