Remembering the Fires of 2002

As California continues to burn, I am reminded of the Arizona fires in 2002. Then, as now, foresters called for thinning and controlled burns as management tools to prevent such conflagrations from getting out of hand. Kirstin Stade, spokesperson for the environmental group "Forest Guardians" allowed at the time that "the group supports forest thinning so long as it does not benefit commercial loggers and is done with solar-powered chain saws." Solar-powered chain saws???

So, where is good ole Kirstin today? Well, the 1995 Stanford grad with a degree in "Earth Systems" has moved on from her days with the Forest Guardians and solar saws. She is now a member of the Portland band "Fools in Paradise," which specializes in traditional Zimbabwe marimba music. She's still a dedicated environmentalist, though, and her personal website offers this helpful explanation: "My passion for western wildlands and the life they support began in my college years, when I spent a summer living in an alcove beneath a rock outcropping in a canyon in southern Utah, and came to feel an incredible kinship with these fragile and beautiful ecosystems."

Fools in paradise, indeed.