I don’t know how the festivities played out at your community fireworks display on the Fourth of July, but in Montclair, VA we set fire to the dam.
Montclair is run by the Montclair Property Owners Association and the yearly homeowner fees residents pay provide funds for an impressive display each 4th. The mortars, mines and other implements of amusement are erected on the earthen dam that created Lake Montclair and spectators watch from Dolphin Beach, their backyards or from a variety of vessels conveniently floating just a few yards off the dam.
We like the Montclair show better than the DC extravaganza because it has better parking, no traffic (other than an occasional incompetent pontoon driver), no security checkpoints and no Pecksniffian Park Service rules on what you are allowed to bring.
My family has been attending these, almost without interruption, since 1996 when Karl was so small we dressed him in a onesie and wedged him upright behind the rear seat of the canoe like a chubby flagpole.
During the last 15 years Montclair has had one show rained out, and one year atmospheric conditions prevented the smoke from dissipating so the last half of the show took place in a smoke screen, much like portions of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. But this is the first occasion where we’ve had a landscape feature become part of the show.
The blaze started early when one of the low–altitude displays was launched. This glorified fountain twinkled over the lake and burning debris fell into the grass at the base of the dam.
Now you don’t have to be Prometheus to know that hot summer days, plus no rain equals dry grass, but evidently this did not occur to the fireworks organizers. As the fire started to climb up the dam from ten or twelve individual small blazes, some in the crowd (optimists I’m sure) thought grass fires were a new addition to the show. “Look, it’s forming letters!” they squealed.
Yes, the fire was spelling “lawsuit;” scheduled to be filed just after the courthouse opens on Tuesday.
The traditional signal for the beginning of the fireworks show is when the truck containing the ammunition drives off the road that runs along the top of the dam, giving the technicians a clear field of fire. Sunday night as the blaze crept up the dam toward the area where the shells and mortars were assembled, I wondered if the signal for the end of this years show would be the silhouettes of the technicians fleeing down the backside of the dam.
Strangely, fire creeping closer to the ammo dump didn’t appear to bother the crew at first. (They may have been rednecks accustomed to impromptu blazes.) It was only when it looked like the fire reached some of the shells and set them off prematurely that our show stopped.
During the lull in the festivities a number of thoughts were making their way through the crowd including: Is the show over? Who hired these clowns? Where’s the fire department? You think the DC display is still on TV? Is the fire going to reach the ammunition dump? You think we should move the boat? Will the dam blow up? Does the cell phone camera work in this much light?
Eventually a single fire truck arrived and started to hose down the flames. But then another remarkable event occurred. After about two–thirds of the flames were doused, the firemen stopped.
Our firemen are volunteers, so it couldn’t have been a shift change. Doesn’t Smokey the Bear say make sure the fire is “out, dead out”? If some officious busybody in a boat with a flashing amber light hadn’t come by before the show and made everyone move back, we could have formed a bucket or cooler brigade and put out the flames the firemen missed.
But you may be wondering, what’s the big deal about a grass fire on an earthen dam? Simple — no dam, no lake. Montclair goes from a community built around a scenic lake to a community built around a fetid, mosquito–filled swamp. And swamp–front property does not command the sales premium that lakefront property does, particularly in this down real estate market.
Plus the feds aren’t allowing any more earthen dams, so if this one fails it will not be replaced.
So as I drifted in my canoe — a prisoner of a recently refinanced mortgage on a lakefront house — and watched the fire, I was inspired to write the song below, sung to the tune of “To Anacreon in Heaven.”
Oh! say can you see our dam burn merrily?
Fire prevention has failed, and the smoke goes up streaming,
This dam holds back the lake and our home value makes
If the rampart’s not there, then neither is Montclair.
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our dam was still there;
Oh! say when you’re planning for fireworks next year
Could you hose down our dam to protect what is dear?
