George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 176

George W. Bush’s Great America – Episode 175

< Episode 175 >

‘Why? Why? Why?’

It took Bush about ten seconds to realize that no answer would come, no matter how many times he asked himself. How could he not be bewildered? Seeing a wildfire while watching the news? Who could imagine such a thing?

It didn’t take long for the reporter, upon realizing it was a wildfire, to scream ‘Holy shit!’ and switch from a regular broadcast to an emergency report.

「It’s a wildfire! The flames are rising so fiercely that we can feel it even from the helicopter.」

“Can we handle that?”

“Since it’s in the early stages, we should be able to put it out within a day or two.”

But something must have gone wrong, because a pillar of fire shot up like something out of a blockbuster movie, followed by a mushroom cloud. It was so big that he momentarily muttered ‘Fat Man?’ under his breath [Fat Man was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki]. However, thanks to the vividness captured by the camera, it only felt bigger than it actually was; it wasn’t really Fat Man-level. It was just a small explosion.

“…Probably?”

Because of that, it didn’t take long for the Chief of Staff’s confident answer to turn into a question.

“Did some heavy equipment explode?”

“No, it looks like a drum full of fuel exploded.”

Heavy equipment or a car exploding wouldn’t cause that kind of explosion. It seemed like a large amount of fuel had detonated. People who had been removing kudzu [an invasive vine species] were rushing over in droves, pouring water and stomping on the flames, but the fire showed no signs of dying down.

In the first place, all the water at the site was either drinking water brought for the workers or tap water from nearby houses. It wasn’t enough to put out the fire. However, the number of people did seem to be holding the fire back a bit.

“Why is there fuel there?”

It wasn’t a situation that could be stopped by even tens of thousands of people uniting. If it had really been just a bonfire that spread, maybe, but it seemed the fire had been spreading behind the mountain even before whatever was presumed to be a fuel tank exploded.

“I wouldn’t know.”

As if on cue, a direct call came in. It hadn’t even been a minute since the news broke, but the report was already coming in, which meant that, whatever else, the reporting system was damn good. It was worth all the times he’d overhauled the administration.

「Mr. President! Fire…!」

“Approved. Signed, stamped!”

「Huh?」

“What are you doing, man! Immediately mobilize the military or something to put out that damn fire! Use a backfire if you have to, just do whatever it takes to put it out!”

With such quick approval, the response was equally swift.

There are many ways to put out a fire, but any method always boils down to one conclusion: removing at least one of the conditions for combustion.

A fire had broken out, and as soon as the President issued an emergency fire suppression order via executive order to suppress it, the first to depart was the air force. Aircraft, including fire-fighting helicopters that had been raised on a budget of 70 million dollars, formed a squadron and streaked across the sky.

In reality, cooperation on the ground is difficult to achieve because every fire department has different policies. There are over 30,000 fire departments across the United States, and each one has its own policies. It’s so different that you have to take another exam to transfer to the fire station next door, which is what makes firefighters so amazing.

No matter how many manuals there are, it’s really difficult to coordinate with people you’re meeting for the first time. Anyone who knows how the military works knows how difficult it is to control a unit when you have to work with another unit.

The fire was being extinguished at an astonishingly fast rate. The systematic speed with which they moved was truly remarkable, a result of replacing outdated equipment on a large scale and increasing the number of firefighting aircraft.

“Have we figured out the cause of the fire?”

“We haven’t been able to determine it yet.”

It hadn’t even been five minutes since the incident occurred. It would be stranger to know the cause at this point. Bush tapped his fingers on the desk a few times, then clicked his tongue. There was nothing more he could do right now.

“Maybe it was spontaneous combustion.”

Spontaneous combustion happens more often than you think. More accurately, it’s not spontaneous combustion, but humans are somewhat involved. Basically, three elements are needed for ignition. Ironically, if these three elements are fully met, the fire will ignite very well.

If the temperature exceeds about 40 degrees Celsius, a fire can start in rags soaked in gloss paint, and a compost pile can catch fire if the level of fermentation exceeds a certain limit. Even a water droplet can act as a magnifying glass and set fire to paper, burning down an entire house. Fire can start in all sorts of ways.

It can even start without any human involvement at all. The most typical example is lightning striking on a clear day, or the Cistus flower, which spontaneously combusts when the temperature rises. The sap of the Cistus is highly flammable, so it ignites with only a slight increase in temperature. It ignites for the purpose of reproduction and annihilation of rivals, which is the cause of the African plains burning in the summer.

“That’s not it.”

However, spontaneous combustion has one thing in common: the temperature is abnormally high. So there’s no way it could spontaneously combust at this low temperature.

“Have them use a satellite or something to find out.”

“Understood.”

“And set up a response headquarters and connect me to the site.”

The site was already swarming with reporters. News had become boring, so each of these scoops was like blood. Thanks to that, volunteers and laborers were secondary. Except for those who were entangled with the reporters and giving interviews.

“This is the fire site! A large number of smokejumpers have been deployed to extinguish the fire.”

Soon, the fire department arrived and began to suppress the fire. The methods were different, but the fire was gradually subsiding, but for some reason, the firefighters’ expressions became more serious as time went on.

“It’s not enough.”

An old man who had been watching the fire being extinguished grumbled.

“Excuse me? Not enough?”

Jang Wei reflexively responded to the old man’s words.

A tremendous noise began to be heard from the sky, and soon they witnessed large aircraft, rarely seen even at airports, forming a squadron and streaking across the sky. The sight of them spewing pink fire retardant in the air was truly spectacular. Wherever the fire retardant touched, the fire subsided without fail and turned into white smoke.

Cheers erupted from the volunteers and laborers who were watching, and it seemed as if the situation would be over soon. Frankly, the former was a pure cheer arising from the overwhelming spectacle, and the latter was half the reason of the former and half the exclamation that came from the gradually disappearing green hell that had seemed like hell.

“What exactly is not enough?”

But what exactly is not enough?

“Everything.”

The fire that seemed to be dying down flared up again. The momentum was weaker than before, but it was more than enough to spread the fire.

“Uh oh! Why is the fire flaring up again?”

“Why else? Because that’s not enough.”

Putting out the fire on the surface was useless; the fire quickly rose again from the deeply rooted kudzu roots. It was a kind of special characteristic only seen in kudzu forests.

“Those damn things just won’t die, even if we do this much.”

“Excuse me?”

“Kudzu, I’m talking about kudzu.”

The old man said that much and spat on the ground. Jang Wei, surprised by the old man’s change from being gentle until just now, instinctively put a cigarette in his mouth, but quickly put it back in the cigarette case. He had lived as a migrant worker for half his life, but Jang Wei was still a cultured person. At least he knew how to read the room and had enough common sense. He didn’t even know why the fire had started, but he was going to smoke a cigarette at the fire site? Was he completely crazy?

He might be caught on that broadcasting station’s camera and humiliated worldwide, or he might be caught by the police there and subjected to a long interrogation. Foreign workers are never protected.

Besides, if his face was sold to the broadcasting station, he would be worried about when he returned to his hometown. The Communist Party does not hesitate to weed out people who do not conform to its rule, especially if they are mere migrant workers.

In short, Jang Wei never wanted to be an exhibit in a human body exhibition.

“Looks like we’re going to have to do the work twice.”

The old man, who didn’t look very happy to begin with, now looked really angry. But what was important to Jang Wei was not the old man’s mood, but the old man’s words. Twice? What on earth did that mean?

“Excuse me? How is this twice?”

Isn’t it enough to just remove the kudzu? Now that there’s a fire, we don’t have to remove the kudzu that climbed up the trees, do we? It may be a misfortune for Americans, but isn’t this a good thing for Jang Wei? That annoying, difficult, and dangerous task is reduced so much!

“Hey, you. Think about it. Our job is to remove kudzu, and to remove that kudzu, we have to somehow clear this burnt forest.”

“That’s right, isn’t it?”

“‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ What do you mean! Don’t you still understand? Don’t you understand what it means to clear a burnt forest?”

“Excuse me?”

Of course, if a fire breaks out in a forest, the trees fall down. The fallen trees were nothing more and nothing less than ‘garbage’. Of course, there may be demand for a very small portion of it. After all, it’s charcoal. So who are the people who have to clean that up?

“Looks like the contract terms will change soon. It’s going to be more difficult than just removing kudzu.”

The government isn’t stupid, so it knows very well that it can’t proceed as it is. Soon, a separate budget will be allocated for this. Then the contract terms and the daily wage will change a lot. It’s hard to know whether this is a misfortune or a blessing for the workers, but for volunteers like the old man, it was a terrible nightmare.

“Wouldn’t it be a little easier since it’s all burned? I mean, you only have to dig the ground.”

“That’s right. It’s all burned. In just a month, only the kudzu roots that will be restored to their original state will remain.”

In other words, until then, at least the kudzu vines were visible to the eye, but from now on, it meant that they would have to dig up everything one by one, like a treasure hunt.

“Maybe they’ll use a bulldozer.”

“I just want to go back to my hometown.”

“You’re free to come to America, but not to leave.”