I never got to see Yosemite's Firefall. Each summer day the fire makers would hike up to the top of Glacier Point, 3250 feet above the Yosemite Valley floor. That is where the world's finest groves of red fir stand tall until they die, at which point they fall to the ground (there are no standing-dead red firs). The heartwood—which is prone to quick decay—wears away and the deeply furrowed, cinnamon red bark is all that remains.

The fire makers would toil until six or seven at night, gathering a pile of red fir bark three feet high—ten wheelbarrows full. The pile was then set afire, and within an hour the glow of the burning pyre was clearly visible from Camp Curry on the valley floor below.

Then, just before nine at night, all the lights were put out and those from down below let out a cry of, "Let the fire fall!" What must have resembled a huge rake made just for the purpose was employed to push the glowing pile of embers over the cliff, and what would've resembled a waterfall of fire sprayed and rushed straight down.

Yosemite's Firefall started round about 1875, plus or minus a few years, which would've been in the earliest days of Yosemite's fame, certainly in the John Muir era. It would come to an end in 1968 for what appears to have been environmental reasons.

Over the past week I've seen the closest thing to the Firefall that I'll probably ever see. Looking toward the south from my house at night the tops of the highest peaks in the San Gabriel Mountains were orange with fire. This would be the "Azusa Canyon" fire, which is distinguished from the Leona Valley fire—to the west of me—and the other area fires burning out of control in Wrightwood, Ventura, Glendale and elsewhere. All or most were set by the hand of man.

There are two kinds of people in this world, and those "two kinds" are separated along many different axis points. There are leaders and followers; the men and the boys; left-brainers and right-brainers; cat people and dog people. There are the just and the unjust, and the rain falls upon them both, says the Good Book. But it seems unjust to me that one person can start a forest fire and in so doing wreak havoc on so many.

There are those who build up, and those who tear down. This week, that seems an apropriate way for me to divvy up the population, what with fires burning all around me, and with tomorrow bearing the date of September 11. I don't understand where the urge to destroy comes from. Thankfully, the urge to build propels the overwhelming majority of those in triathlon whom I come into contact. Of course there are the exceptions: those who frivolously sue, or who needlessly, and in a shrill tone, speak ill of others.

During the day the smoke rises from the mountaintops where the flames were clearly visible the night before. Sometimes the smoke blows west, toward Palmdale and Acton, and sometimes east, toward Big Bear, choking the town of Wrightwood, where we sometimes ride. Then sometimes it blows north, and comes right at us, with a suffocating blanket that stops all labor outside the house. That blanket isn't just the woodsmoke from the bigcone douglas firs, coulter pines and incense cedars that grow in the Azusa and San Gabriel Canyons. It's the smoke from everything that lived there, and couldn't get away in time.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who offer mercy and those who seek vengeance. I must admit to being in the latter camp this week. Best if I never sat on a jury that decided the fate of one who sets a forest fire.