View from the North 40: Recent encounters in man vs. nature

With wildfires, earthquakes, drought, grizzly bears invading the prairie and our descent into the heart of bug season, Pamville News brings its readership news and commentary on what’s happening in the man vs. nature struggle across the country.

• KHQ News in King County, Washington, reported Tuesday that a GMC Envoy died in a fire after a 14-year-old took his parents’ SUV and a few friends on a joy ride to buy fireworks earlier that morning. Officers reported that the boys returned home safely, but then started a “Roman candle fight.”

A stray incendiary device from this duel flew into an open window of the vehicle and it succumbed to the flames. No word on whether the boys will be charged, or if they will be using the “well, at least we didn’t poke an eye out” defense.

• Still, that’s not the most ridiculous use of fireworks this Fourth of July. CBS News reported that a guy in Grand Blanc, Michigan, burned down his garage trying to use a smoke bomb to kill wasps in a nest in the eaves. He succeeded. But I think authorities are making the argument that the cause of the wasps’ deaths were from the intense heat of the all-consuming flames rather than the smoke. That’s probably a moot point in this man’s victory over his natural, winged enemy.

• Authorities at the municipal office building in Augusta, Maine, are having their own bug infestation problem after a disgruntled complainant threw a cupful of bedbugs on a counter in the building. The man was trying to make the point that nothing was being done about his complaint that he had suffered from his own bed bug infestation at his previously rented apartment. No word yet on whether Augusta officials will be bringing the Grand Blanc fireworks guy in as an extermination consultant.

• A professional runner and two bears in Maine crossed paths early Wednesday morning, The Sun Journal reported, and the man disproved the adage that you need to be in this situation with someone who runs slower than you to get out alive.

The runner’s instinct overruled bear experts’ advice to stand your ground and look big. Instead, he played to his strength and fought back with the only tool he had available: his fast legs, which took him to an abandoned house where he barricaded himself in an enclosed porch until the bears went on their way. At that point, the man used his legs to run the six miles back to his own home. The bears were left free to start their own speed training program to up their odds against the competition.

That was a pretty bland ending compared to what happened to a Colorado bear this week.

• Sadly, a bear — which was destined to be my familiar — was killed near Colorado Springs, Colorado, this week. Surveillance footage of Chris O’Dubhraic’s Brandywine Drive home shows that a large, fat bear spent six hours roaming the man’s house and raiding his fridge Tuesday, The Gazette said.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials shot the bear after comparing the surveillance images to those from earlier crimes in the neighborhood. The same bear a few days earlier had trapped a neighbor, who apparently wasn’t a professional runner, in her car while the bear rummaged through the garage. This was after the same bear was discovered eating ice cream and M&Ms stolen from another home.

Oh, spirit animal, would that we had met up and joined forces before your untimely demise. What grand foody adventures we could have had.

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