By some stroke of luck or simple habit of missing the moment, I’ve had a knack for dodging disasters around here.

A decade ago, I rolled into Silverton for a seasonal job nearly a year after the Gold King Mine waste water spill sent a few million gallons of sludge down the Animas River. Though countless people downstream were still sifting through Bonita Peak’s innards, the headwaters were, by appearance at least, clear once again.

I spent two beautiful summers there as a hired hand for the Bureau of Land Management. If a man must clean toilets for living, there are few better places to do it than the Alpine Loop, where I worked under the bureaucratic title of “recreation technician.” Home was a dusty room above the gas station at the near end of town.

Then the next season, when life carried me elsewhere, the 416 Fire sent 55,000 acres up in smoke. Another catastrophe I saw only through a screen.

So when the cliffs above U.S. Highway 550 burst into flames in late June, I was superstitiously hopeful the ashes would be cold by the time I arrived. No such luck — for us, or for the mountains. Headed south from Montrose last week, the last leg of my three-day drive from Atlanta, I had the impression of driving toward a volcano. My first night in town, I watched fire lick at the slopes of Baldy Peak.

This, to a born Georgian, is all rather strange. Back east, the land on which lives are built is something of an afterthought. It has rained, I am told, more or less continuously since I left town at the top of the month. I doubt anyone takes much notice — there, droughts always end. Suburbs roll out unimpeded, clearing forests and diverting streams without blinking. And one of the last places I visited before heading west is an otherwise extinct pocket of old-growth forest tucked into the southern Appalachians — all of six miles square.

Here, at least in my experience, things are different. Here, lives only rarely dictate the course of the land. It is usually the other way around.

Along the crest of the Cimarrons is all the proof in the world. It’s anyone’s guess how long the Gold Mountain Fire will burn, or the acreage it will consume. It may be this summer’s great fire in the San Juan high country, or just one awful child of a warm, dry winter. As most folks have already realized, some of their favorite places in the world will never be the same.

But for the Plaindealer, and its neighbors, this story won’t end when the smoke clears and the tent city at Ridgway’s edge is packed up and gone. The forests will return stronger. The pine beetles will continue with their work, boring the trees into tinder. Next winter may bury us in snow, or have us sweating by spring. Livelihoods must be rebuilt; preparations must be made.

In the meantime, some of this ought to be written down. What a time to sign on as an environment and public lands reporter; what a time to return to one of my favorite places in the world.

The privilege of local news is that we are in it for the long haul. We get to find out, alongside our readers, if not how this story ends, where it goes from here.

The Gold Mountain Fire, of course, is just one of those stories. There is the historic drought backdropping these blazes, and the threat of more iceless Ice Fests to come. There are postcard-perfect corners of the San Juans being loved to death, and promises to be kept to clear pollution from the Uncompahgre River’s waters. Wolves roam the hills for the first time in generations.

In so many words, these are newsworthy times in Ouray County. I consider myself beyond lucky to try to capture them in the years to come, but it will take a village. Our readers’ wisdom and knowledge is worth its weight in gold, and I am grateful for whatever you all can share with me — be they tips, war stories, or your favorite spot to put your head down and hike all day without seeing another soul.

At my last job, covering courts and legal affairs, I spent most of my time in the dreary concrete behemoth of a building that houses Atlanta’s federal courthouse. I was in training for the better part of a month before getting let off the leash. But 24 hours after reporting to the Plaindealer, I was lobbing questions at a hotshot as a battalion’s worth of firefighters rolled out for the day.

Even if it still feels a bit thin, and not a little smoky, it’s a breath of fresh air.

Chart Riggall is a Report for America journalist focused on covering environmental issues. His work also contributes to the Western Environmental Reporting Collaborative with High Country News and other news outlets across the West. Reach him via email at chart@ouraynews.com and contact erin@ouraynews.com to make a tax-deductible donation to support his work here for the community, or click here for the Plaindealer’s dedicated online donation site.