I saw the smoke Sunday afternoon as I drove my family to Provo to visit relatives. It hugged the mountainside like giant gray cotton balls gentling rolling upward, and from our freeway vantage the crimson rim of its origin seemed to be dangerously close to touching Springville.
At dusk, the mountain transformed into a pulsating red. We saw flames leaping and undulating like the surface of the sun. It was beautiful, until we all blinked a few times and realized how frighteningly ugly it really was.
Someone has said that Utahns should stop agonizing over the current drought because this is a desert. Here, drought — or at least extreme dryness — is the norm. That would be an easy statement to defend in court. The 15-some-odd inches of rain this part of the world receives each year puts it near the bottom on the list of wet places. And even in a normal year, very few of those inches fall during July.
But if summer dryness is the norm, why are so many people oblivious to its dangers?
The fire above Springville, we later learned, was started by someone taking pot shots at a power pole. It's the kind of stupidity that both enrages and baffles. Every evening, video of destructive fires in Colorado and Arizona stream across our televisions. People are fleeing their homes, making last-minute decisions about which of their possessions truly have lasting value. Some people even have lost their lives to the flames. It ought to be a time for utmost caution, and yet someone thought it would be fun to fire a gun at a live power line, repeatedly, until the line fell to the ground.
But then sometimes it seems that if stupidity were water, this place would be a rain forest instead of a desert. Not long after seeing the fire (which, as I write this, still is raging), I lay in bed trying to sleep as loud, obviously illegal fireworks boomed and crackled through my neighborhood.
Last week, the editorial board at this newspaper decided to call for an outright ban on all private fireworks. Some people took exception to that. One of them called to complain that this was one more example of how Americans today want the government to protect them from themselves. He knew how to handle fireworks. He had learned proper safety precautions in his youth. Other people (such as myself, presumably) want the government to make everyone suffer because some people can't teach their kids properly.
"Why not outlaw cigarettes?" he wondered. "People who toss those out of cars can start fires."
Next he rattled off a list of other combustible things, from matches to automobiles. Why not outlaw them, as well? And, while we were at it, we ought to outlaw lightning, which starts a good deal of forest fires.
I got the point. I could well have added to the list myself. Why not, for instance, outlaw stupidity?
Laws are a reflection of what society believes are common-sense rules for an orderly, safe community — rules that don't infringe on basic individual rights. But, in practical terms, they do more than that. They set artificial limits on behavior that often exceeds what the letter of the law allows. People often calculate how far beyond the law they can go without getting in trouble. For example, if the speed limit is 65, we feel safe setting the cruise control at 70. Surely, we reason, a cop who wanted to stop everyone going 70 would be in for an impossibly busy day.
And if we know that a certain amount of pyrotechnic firepower is legal in July in Utah, we may feel safe in making a quick trip to Wyoming for a few missiles that fly and pop with a bit more spunk. Who has time to track that down on the night of the Fourth or the 24th? Who is going to check whether your rocket rises higher than the legally allowed 15 feet?
But then, you may end up as we did one year, frantically grabbing a hose to douse a bush that exploded when an errant rocket from a block or so away landed at its base.
Last Wednesday, Gov. Mike Leavitt announced new temporary restrictions on fire-related activity on all unincorporated land in the state. You can't start an open fire. You can't smoke, except in your car or in an enclosed building. You can't operate a chain saw or any off-road motor vehicles or welding equipment. Don't even think about fireworks. In short, the only thing he didn't outlaw was lightning.
But then, 150,000 acres of Utah already is charred black this year, and much of it has been due to human idiocy.
Laws cannot protect us from stupidity any more than they really protect us from evil. They do, however, set limits that reasonable people can understand and obey, and they allow the courts to punish the negligent.
This summer, more than any other, it's time to ban fireworks in Utah. People in tinderboxes shouldn't play with flames.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com