Not 100 meters from the highway, on a tree-covered slope, a group of villagers sweep leaves and branches from a hidden dirt path. Accompanied by the roar of leaf blowers, a relatively new addition to the effort, they gather to clear the community fire break in anticipation of the yearly forest fires.
A thin sliver of road can be seen from where we are, along with the faint din of lorries and cars passing by.
Villagers gathering, presumably to sort out logistics before heading to the fire break together. It is a path that goes around the circumference of the village, delineating this one from the next. The territory lines are clearly agreed upon and each village has a mutual understanding over their responsibility for making fire breaks.
This is a relatively harder stretch, they say. It's along a slope without any clear path, where the terrain is steep and hard to traverse. But this makes the job of sweeping slightly easier - a few wide movements can send a pile of debris snowballing to the slope below. The group, cajoling and comradely, come from a single village in Samoeng, Chiangmai. Mae La Ek has barely 30 households (all comprised of indigenous Karen people), all of whom must send at least one representative to participate in the yearly fire break-making.
The role of leaf blowers, a heavy, boxy contraption, cannot be understated. Without it, villagers must use makeshift brooms to clear an almost 15 km path of debris. I ask to help; a lady cuts and shapes a branch for me, its leaves forking out into bristles. The most problematic (read: flammable) are pine needles, which land on the ground in a thick, static mat. The path is bumpy and creviced; in order to make a proper fire break, it should be almost entirely clear of dry matter. With only simple tools, the job would drag on.
The hardest stretch of the day. Imagine navigating this with a heavy leaf blower on your back!
Me, using a branch to sweep leaves. It felt awkward at the start, but became easier with time.
Pine needles that clump together and have to be prodded out of the ground. Pine is much more flammable than other biomass.
Leaf blowers make it possible to tag team, and efficiently so. "We split teams - Team A, Team B... And each is in charge of a different task."
A group goes ahead with brooms, sweeping away a first layer of debris. The leaf blower team follows and clears it entirely; stragglers follow with brooms for a final pass. Some other stretches are led by team leaf-blower, with brooms left to do the finer final touches. For the tedium of the work, their system is neat and organized.
A leaf blower in action!
Like before, the question of land rights hangs in a fog. A fire break almost always belongs in the forest, which it exists to protect. If there were no forests, this path cutting through the thick foliage to prevent fire from destroying large swathes of the ecosystem, would not be necessary. Forest fires don't harm bare soil; they swallow dry trees and underbrush whole. Yet the forest belongs to no one, least of all the people working to protect it. They neither cultivate nor earn from it. In a trickle, it provides moisture and water for their environment; it cools the place down. Most of these are easily replaced by facilities which you could buy with money. But the indigenous Karen people prefer to keep the forest, and to some extent a philosophy of living communally with nature, intact.
Almost a day of sweeping in the forest is meditative for me. They ask if I enjoy it; I say yes with complete earnestness. They pile us with rice and chicken soup; pickled leaves and local sweets are passed around during lunch. We eat in a wide glade where they point out the surrounding forests that envelope Mae La Ek and neighboring Mae To in a shady embrace. This work is necessary, not just for the lives it shields, but for the sheer incredulity of caring for such a wide unclaimed stretch of earth by so few. And now the question for those of us watching - how can we be a part of it too?
Lunch from the back of a pickup. Two types of chicken soup, rice, and some other stuff. Very filling :D
What the ‘fire break’ looks like before it becomes a fire break. The leaves on the ground are what cause the fire to spread, which is why a path must be cleared, leaving only bare ground.
About Me
Hui Ran is part of a team that does, in her words, “a bunch of projects to do with social and environmental causes”. The current project is looking into water and forest fire issues in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The former is caused by climate change; the latter by humans and our burning tendencies. They may be the same in the end, but they affect people’s lives in their own unique, cruel ways. As of March 2021, we are in the process of learning more about the situation before we can hopefully, work together on some ways to improve it.
The activities described in this essay are part of the SPHERE (Sustainable Project for Health, Ecosystem Restoration, and Education) 7 Project to advance social and environmental objectives in Northern Thailand. The project is generously supported by Goh Foundation Singapore.