Source: Nature: "Cloud's Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns"
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This Nature episode shows a raging fire in Crooked Creek in the Arrowhead Mountains of Montana. Thousands of acres of forest are torched in a matter of minutes. The fire is only two miles from the meadows of the range where wild horses live. Helicopters drop fire retardant and water. Firefighters keep to the high ground. Miraculously, overnight, rains come, temperatures drop, and winds die. Producer and narrator, Ginger Kathrens, searches for and finds Cloud, a colt she has been documenting for years. Kathrens is relieved to find Cloud and his band (family of horses) have been spared from the fire.
Download and ShareThe following Frame, Focus and Follow-up suggestions are best suited for elementary or middle school students using this video in an English language arts or science lesson. Be sure to modify the questions to meet your students' instructional needs.
What is Frame, Focus and Follow-up?
Frame (ELA) Describe how you have used information in a text to solve a problem. For example, have you ever read a dog training book to learn how to teach your dog to come to you when you call him? Have you ever gone to a Help link to solve a computer problem?
Focus (ELA) This segment shows a raging forest fire. Watch the video to learn how a forest fire is fought and what the firefighters hoped to do to save the wild horses.
Follow Up (ELA) What did you learn from the video about fighting forest fires? Discuss the problems and dangers the firefighters confronted. Did all problems have a solution? Explain. Finally, describe how the information in the video helped you decide what the solutions were to stopping the forest fire and saving the wild horses.
Frame (SCI) What do you know about forest fires?
Focus (SCI) How does this forest fire affect the vegetation and animal life of these mountain ranges?
Follow Up (SCI) Describe forest vegetation and wildlife before a fire. What supports these living organisms of a forest? When a forest fire rages, how are vegetation and animals who live in the forest affected? What can people do first to prevent devastating forest fires and second, to restore the forests and aid the animals once a fire has broken out?
On a Monday in mid July, I get a call. A fire has broken out in a canyon called Crooked Creek adjacent to the horse range and is burning out of control. I’m packed and on my way to Montana a few hours later. After years of drought and one lightning storm after another, my worst fears are realized. As the crow flies, the fire is only two miles from the high meadows of the horse range.
Weeks of 100 degree temperatures coupled with stiff winds cause the blaze to explode. Thousands of acres are torched in a matter of minutes.
Expert fire fighting units are called in but are unfamiliar with where the horses might run if the blaze reaches them.
FEMALE FIRE OFFICIAL: “That and to the left and right of that road is the major point that they would come down to get out of a fire in the forest.”
FEMALE FIRE OFFICIAL: “You guys are gonna get this thing stopped though before then.”
MALE FIRE OFFICIAL: “That’s the plan. We sure hope so.”
500-gallon buckets are filled with pond water and flown into the canyons. The fight to save the Arrowhead Mountains becomes an aerial battle.
The distant chopper looks like a toy armed with a thimble full of water to toss on the inferno.
Afternoon winds churn the flames and another 1,000 acres goes up in smoke. Winds begin blowing out of the west driving the blaze toward the horse range.
Slurry bombers, carrying fire retardant, are called in.
The bombers drop their payload into the canyons.
Firefighters keep to the high ground for there are no safe routes into or out of the canyons.
Roads in and out of the Arrowheads are closed until further notice.
Then, overnight, rain falls, the temperature drops, and the winds die.
The fire smolders like a sleeping dragon.
Helicopters monitor the burned hillsides and ravines, looking for flare-ups.
The spectacular canyon where Cloud once wintered is a charred wasteland. As if someone drew a line, the burn stops and the green forest begins.
Finally I’m allowed back on the mountain, excited but frightened at what I might find.
Above a waterhole I spot Shaman’s band with Bolder looking even more golden than the last time I saw him.
If any of the horses I’ve seen so far suffered in the fire, it doesn’t show.
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