The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna

bench.
    “What on earth’s the matter with it?” the men wondered.
    That same evening the men noticed a strong smell of smoke. As the lake became still for the night, they could see, beyond the reeds of the farther shore, a blue cowl of smoke gathering.
    “Somewhere there’s a forest fire,” Vatanen said.
    The next morning, the smoke was enough to make their eyes smart. There was a wind on the lake, but the smoke thickened. It overlaid everything like a dense sea haze.
    On the third morning of smoke, Savolainen came running across the boardwalk to the cabin.
    “There’s a huge fire at Vehmasjärvi. Vatanen, you’ll have to go and join the firefighters. Take Hannikainen’s knapsack and put some food in it. I’ll spread the word around the villages. Let’s go, right away. Two thousand acres are up in smoke already.”
    “Should I go, too?” Hannikainen asked.
    “No, you stay here with the hare. The over-fifty-fours don’t have to go.”
    Vatanen stuffed the knapsack with fish, lard, a pound of butter, and salt; then he left. Meanwhile, the hare was enticed into the cabin, so it wouldn’t follow Vatanen.
    Vatanen was taken from Nilsiä to Rautavaara, where hundreds of men were gathering, some from the fire area, others on their way to it. Aircraft were continually droning overhead, lifting food from Rautavaara to the fire area. Tired, sooty men, back from the fire, had little to say about it; they crept into tents to sleep.
    In a gap between the billeting tents, Rautavaara’s elderly pharmacist had established a sort of first-aid station and, helped by his daughter, was binding firefighters’ blistered legs and bathing them with boric acid. A television crew was apparently interviewing the deputy town clerk of Rautavaara. The woman editor of the Savo Daily Times was taking photographs; Vatanen himself got his picture in the paper. Canteens were providing soup for everyone.
    Trained orienteers were required. Vatanen said he could find his way in the wilds with a bucket on his head. A party of similar volunteers were herded into a heavy army helicopter.
    Before the helicopter took off, the officer in charge explained what they had to do: “I’ve photocopied the map of the area for each of you. Your copy gives you some idea of how far the fire’s spread. Last night it came to a stop at the point marked on your map, but that’s not where it is now. Right now it’s traveling northeast through the treetops at a hellish speed. Tonight we’ll be clearing a new firebreak seven miles farther up. During the night we’re going to let over four thousand acres burn away. Half of it may, in fact, have gone already. We’re dealing with the biggest fire in Finnish history—not counting Tuntsa, perhaps. Now, your task is this: You’ll be let down at the point marked with a cross in the line of the fire’s advance. You’re to form a chain at hundred-yard intervals from each other and head northeast for at least six miles or so, shouting and making a hell of a clamor to get the game to flee from the path of the fire. There are two houses as well. They’ll have to be evacuated. Get the people down to the lakeshore, at this point here. And any other people, get them out of the fire area, too. Also, according to our reports, there’s livestock at large in these backwoods, on the run from Nilsiä—horses, and about fifty cows. They’ve got to be driven down to the lake, also to this point on the map.”
    They helicoptered over the fire area. The glowing heat down below seemed to be reaching right up to the chopper. The air was cloaked in a thick pall of smoke, the earth scarcely visible. The helicopter was buffeted about in the heat turbulence, and it seemed as if the long blades of the main rotor might crack and drop the chopper into the roaring furnace below.
    The helicopter passed beyond the fire area and began descending like a large dragonfly. Its rotors churned; blue smoke jetted from the tail into the sweltering