(noun) an extensive fire that destroys a great deal of land or property.
As many of you already know, I grew up in Indiana, a place that has Normal Weather. (I define “Normal Weather” as having four separate seasons that match what you learn in Kindergarten: spring, summer, fall, winter and all their lovely attributes.) The weather was vaguely predictable, despite how much we liked to complain about it. I had never spent much thought on what weather in the rest of the country might be like; so imagine my surprise when we up and moved to the Arizonan climate.
Suddenly the four seasons were gone. Now there were new ones:10 months of “summer” a.k.a. I think the sun may be our neighbor, 1 month of rain-a-day monsoon, and 1 month of “brr, it’s 50 degrees and I’m freezing, whyyy?”
But with the glorious sunshiny weather came a new type of weather alert: Wildfire Warnings. Before moving, I had never EVER seen a wildfire warning. Hail warnings, heavy wind, even tornado warnings were common…but the idea that spontaneous fires may erupt from the ground was entirely new.
And so the word conflagration is particularly relevant in my life nowadays. I especially like the fact that it means a REALLY BIG FIRE, not just a little bonfire kindling. I’m just happy to have never met one of these firestorms in person, a fact that I’d rather not change, thank you very much.
Another alternate definition of this word also means a war or conflict. Interesting to think that humans very easily have the power to imitate a natural disaster, probably many times over.
Now I’m going to see if I can work in some conflagrations into my writings. In the meantime, stay fire-safe! Have a nice virtual fireplace instead!
The Blog of Christine B. 
That must have been quite a shock to the system, moving somewhere like that!
I live in England, so it’s pretty much perpetual wind and/or rain with occasional Sunny-Day-of-Renewed-Hope. No danger of anything bursting into flames here, so your description in both fascinating and alien to me! A great post for a great word! ☺
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My grandmother was from England, and I must have her spirit because I freakin’ love that mopey, rainy weather. I miss it so. I think it’s rained twice since Christmas? But as nice as the constant sunshine is, I’d trade it in a heartbeat for a patch of real grass. We’ve got astroturf and that’s about it.
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I meant to reply to this on Monday but I got side-tracked. Apologies!
How interesting, maybe you do! 🙂 I must admit that the rain isn’t all that bad, we just have an inherent need to complain about it all the time!
Wow, I’d never considered living somewhere without real grass…maybe I should be a bit more grateful for it.
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Yeah, we only have green grass during the monsoon season July/August. Right now our grass is all yellow and gross. The weirdest thing for me to get used to is seeing the front yards: all gravel. Some people use different colored gravel to spruce up their yards, but it’s basically all rocks. So strange.
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That is strange! As alien as the coloured gravel sounds to me, it makes a lot of sense. Like having a fancy trimmed hedge, more or less! 😄
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I suppose the best part is not having to mow the lawn very often! Gravel does not grow, although it does harbor lizards sometimes, lol.
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I live in southern California where we get a lot of wildfires too. One time a few years ago, there was such a big fire in the nearby mountains that the sky over my town turned a greyish red and ash rained down. It was very apocalyptic.
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That is terrifying :O There was a big wildfire in the mountains a couple years before I moved here, and everyone still talks about it. My husband and I have walked trails in that area and it’s still pretty burnt up. Lots of charred trees, which make for some interesting scenery.
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Ooh, yeah I can imagine that being really interesting to walk through. Good inspiration for a story. Sad to hear it happened though 😦
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