I spent a lot of time this summer and fall walking our Land Trust Preserves that were impacted by summer wildfires. Each time I return from a visit, I find myself thinking about time. Not just the anxious clock of evacuations and fire suppression or the slow plodding pace of recovery—but geologic time. The time of mountains, rivers, and lava flows.
Over the years, our partners at the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and the Klamath Tribes have shared with us teachings calling on their people to manage resources for seven generations into the future. When you intentionally take this long view, you can feel your mindset shift. While our restoration and conservation work can feel fraught with deadlines, timelines, and high stakes, it has helped me to remember that we have time. Missed opportunities have time to come back around, our restoration projects have time to demonstrate their full and long-term impacts, and we have time to build relationships and trust with the people and communities we serve.
In this vast scale, fire is not disaster—it’s renewal. Forests burn, soils rebuild, plants and animals adapt, landscapes reshape. The Earth has carried fire for millions of years and will continue long after my lifetime, long after this moment. But within my small human lifespan, the loss feels sharp and personal: homes, memories, favorite trails, views I’ve spent hundreds of hours enjoying.
I’m trying to hold both truths at once—that the land is ancient and resilient, and that our grief and care for the land are deeply valid. No matter how I’m feeling, it helps to remember that it isn’t our responsibility to keep the land as we’ve found it. Instead we are called upon to help it along as it evolves over millennia, to witness the long story unfolding, even when our chapter is marked by fire.
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