Offing the Fire

I had a busy morning on Saturday. Then in the afternoon instead of sitting down and relaxing or working on another project, I decided to drive over to Bezer Home to buy some eggs. (The children at Bezer Home have been raising chickens and selling the eggs.) While I was there, I started visiting with the houseparents about my plans to start up the Rock Garden Cafe once again after a three-year hiatus. I was trying to explain the exact location of where we would need to cut the grass in order to get ready for the cafe. Then I decided it would be easier just to walk out to the location.

We headed towards the back of the cement-block fence where a little walk-in gate is located, but it was locked so some of the boys went to get the key from the guard. But the key couldn't be found anywhere. For some reason, I was just determined to get to the back acreage. So we decided to go out a gate on the opposite side of the compound and bushwhack until we could get around to the cafe area. We finally made it out into the clearing where we planned to host the cafe. Once we were in the clearning, we all heard the distinctive crackle of a grass fire. We headed towards the burning area. By this time, the key had been found, and the guard came through the normal entrance. I quickly made a plan that we would cut the grass down to the dirt level in order to form a ditch that would hopefully curtail the fire. At that point we had about three cutlasses, and I quickly drove out to the main junction and bought four more.

When I came back 15 minutes later, I was surprised to see that the fire had diminished greatly.

I asked, "What happened?"

"Baba Maguard is offing the fire."

Wow. This grizzled old man had cut a green branch and was beating the fire out. We quickly realized he had the right method. We stopped using the cutlasses to cut grass, and started cutting green branches for flogging the fire.


Amazingly, it took just a few people to beat the entire fire out! It's important to note that we were not dealing with a raging wildfire. It was a grass fire and much of the grass was still green. No one put their life at risk to stop the fire.

Almost every year, someone burns the grass on the ministry property. Sometimes they do it in order to hunt the small animals. Generally there is nothing we can do about it because we usually discover it too late. This year we really want to preserve the area where we plan to have our cafe. We also want to use the grass for thatch for some huts we are building.

Burning grass is a common occurrence in Nigeria. It's often seen as a good way to clear the land. It always makes me nervous though as we are just entering the dry season, and we won't have any rain for at least five months.