I went downstairs to lend Wendy the Angel/Buffy tape, and got sucked into a documentary about wildfires. They talked a little about the Yellowstone fires of 1988, which she was there for and which her father was instrumental in letting burn. (He's a fire god, and a plant ecologist, and advocated letting the fires burn. He won, and apparently was right.)

It's fun watching stuff like this with Wendy, because she's, well, she's insane. She kept saying "Isn't that amazing" and "isn't that great" when huge pine trees burst into flames 10 stories high. It is amazing, but I'd say terrifying rather than great. She snarked about the forestry people vs. the park people -- who knew there was a a rivalry?

Quote of the evening, from someone supervising the crews of firefighters at an 800,000-acre blaze in Idaho: "We're going to have to control this fire now, or Mother Nature will have won." Um, yeah. Nature tends to win, when you're talking about, say, huge natural disasters. Wendy was saying "Sure, why don't you bring in hurricane fighters, or tornado fighters. It's just as effective."

So yeah. Wendy and fire. Scary stuff.