Living scared is no way to live. Residents of Eastern Arizona have had a terrifying couple of weeks.
They watched the sky swell with black, then orange, settling into a dense gray haze over homes and towns. They watched the endless newscasts, seeing residents of nearby towns fleeing the flames that threatened to engulf everything they had worked toward.
Then the blaze came closer, an orange cloud knocking at their doors. Sirens and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles accompanied the knocks of police officers, firefighters and neighbors, summoning those in the path of the flames to leave their lives behind, to make temporary ones on an artificial football field.
The "Rodeo/Chedeski" fire would not win, though. Spokesman Jim Paxon reassured the residents, the workers, the empathetic viewers around the state and the nation that the fire would not win. Some houses may be lost, the trees may give way, and the land may get blackened, but the people are strong, their will is forceful and firefighters journeyed to make sure the people have the final victory.
Donations, volunteers and support flooded in. People lucky enough to be safe in their homes donated blankets for evacuees and kibble for displaced pets.
Like the wonders that surrounded Sept. 11, we've seen disaster bring out the best in people. People feel touched and grateful, eager to unload their time, money and effort as gratitude for their own safety.
But while tragedy often brings out the best in many people, sometimes the worst is drawn out, finding an opportunity to strike when people are down and fighting back is tasteless.
All trust was shattered when a firefighter was charged with igniting the "Rodeo" fire. The very person who was supposed to protect the people and the land from devastation had lit a match for his own desperate reasons.
But the pompous parade of politicians who made their way through Show Low during the early days of the fire eclipsed a noble opportunity to help the people who were suffering, instead showing a sickening amount of blame and contempt.
Gov. Jane Hull toured the area by air, watching the flames eat trees, shrubs, fences, mailboxes and forest homes for both people and wildlife. She went to the gymnasiums and football field, shook hands with the terrified people who only wanted to know if their houses were still standing. Hull's air tour assured that her own second home was safe from the blaze.
Then she held a press conference. The evacuees needed comfort and assurance that this incomprehensible disaster could somehow be understood. Hull's offering, echoed by politicians around the nation, was to blame the environmentalists. Angry tirade after angry tirade showed only bitterness and contempt in the face of terrifying disaster. Pointing fingers were as prominent and destructive as the nearby flames.
They pushed their own agenda by pushing blame away from their own failure to solve the problem. Many politicians displayed their own weakness and inability to solve what they perceive to be problems. They can't take responsibility or accept inevitability as an answer,
Residents are scared. During this horrible disaster, they should be able to trust those they've designated as their leaders to help them through a hard time. At a time when trust is breached by firefighters themselves starting fires, it's imperative that politicians don't allow this fire, or any disaster, to bring out the worst in them.
