Word: firs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...guess I don't have the patience for any other job." A 15-year veteran of forest fires, Humphrey has had only one day off in a month, but says he would keep on working for free. As he talks, nearby flames shoot several hundred feet up a Douglas fir in a matter of seconds. The tremendous roar is followed by the thunder of a "widowmaker" -- a falling tree -- crashing through the dense smoke. Soon other trees ignite almost spontaneously in an effect known among fire fighters as crowning. "Those flames can leap across the treetops faster than...
...Mount Shasta in northern California, 5,000 pilgrims shivered on the rocky, fir-covered slopes. Before the sun's rays warmed the night, a solitary woman, crouching on a sheepskin, began to beat a drum. Sounds of flutes and songs filled the air, and tears streamed down the faces of three women wrapped in Indian blankets. They passionately believed the solemn intonation of Participant Shirley Stanfield: "Expect to be changed forever...
Farther from the epicenter, in hummocky fields of loose volcanic ash and fine pumice pebbles, willows, red alder and an occasional Douglas fir have taken root near small ponds. At the waters' edge, Pacific tree frogs and salamanders now flourish. Large bodies of water like Spirit Lake, which was filled with organic debris and robbed of its oxygen by accompanying bacteria during the eruption, have made even more rapid recoveries. Algae, zooplankton and freshwater crustaceans have all recolonized the lake, prompting authorities from the state department of game to push for the restocking of such game fish as rainbow...
...score went to a Sioux reservation in South Dakota to do painting, tiling and light carpentry at a Y.M.C.A. center; a dozen arrived in Juarez, Mexico, to help build a "serviglesia," a church to serve the poor; another twelve headed for Appalachia's "Valley of Despair" to plant fir trees and work on construction and furniture-building projects. Says Vanderbilt Senior Ethel Johnson, 21, who stayed in Nashville with another team sowing gardens, making curtains and teaching English in a community of Cambodian refugees: "Students are vastly underestimated. They have a real desire to get out there and do something...
Come next March the monarchs will stir, begin mating and in a great whirlwind of color set out for the U.S. Six months later, a new generation will fly south, headed for the tiny patches of fir forest that conservationists and Mexican officials hope will be a butterfly refuge for another epoch...