Abhayagiri’s Firefighter Stories

Abhayagiri’s Firefighter Stories: From Ajahn Jotipalo:

About the “Loop Trail”  I asked the crew from New Mexico how it was fighting the fire.  They had been on the property for about 5 days.  They said it was the weirdest thing, like the monastery refused to burn.  They said one evening (probably the day Timothy Luke was forced to leave Mt Tabor, and he reported seeing 200 foot tall flames on the ridge)  that 10 battalions (20 to a battalion) were out on the loop trail fighting the fires coming down from the ridge.  They reported that the fires got down to the loop trail but the fire wouldn’t cross the trail.  They said it was like the monastery refused to burn, and none of them could explain it.  They reported their hair sanding on it’s end and then the fire reversed itself and went back up the mountain.  Everybody was kind of freaked-out, as they had never seen anything like this.  I asked several of the other crews about their experience and they all reported about this.