As we descended the long hill into the ravine from the top of our street I thought vaguely there was an odour of wood burning, but thought little of it.  It was a very cold day, bright on the street above in the sun, but exceedingly chill within the embrace of the forested ravine.  The chill wind zipped through the unleafed trees, offering little shelter from its icy fingers.

A woman with a frisky young boxer whom we'd seen before occasionally spoke to my husband, telling him that it seemed from what she could discern that a boy somewhere behind us in the ravine and across the creek had made a bonfire.  We weren't too concerned; due to quite a lot of rain the woods were fairly wet still and the ground covered with desiccated, wet leaves. 

On our return over an hour later, as we prepared this time to ascend that same hill to our street, we crossed over the last bridge leading to the hill and saw from its vantage point smoke rising high in a pocket of trees on the hillside.  We bypassed the ascent temporarily and continued along a part of the trail we usually avoid because it tends to be a short muddy passage where people have slipped and slid off the bank into the creek.  From there we could see where the smoke was emanating from, and as we looked at what appeared to be a smudge fire, a sudden fat flame leaped about four feet into the air, then settled back again.

My husband crossed the creek at a narrow point, availed himself of part of a broken branch and pulled himself up the steep bank with some difficulty, making for the area of the smoke with the intention of putting out whatever remained of the fire.  When he arrived at the fire and began whacking the embers that now and again resurrected the fierceness of the fire, he was suddenly startled when a figure raised itself from a nearby copse of woods.  There sat a young man with a thin beard and mustache swigging from a flask of alcohol.

My husband shouted at him that he was an idiot, and the young man protested that he was in the process of putting the fire out.  And it was evident he had done something; placed a large damp-looking conifer bough that had obviously lain on the forest floor for some time, over his fire.

Leaving the scene and making his way with some difficulty back to a bridge where he could re-cross over to our side, we finally went home.  And from there spoke to the fire department to alert them to a possible problem.  The receptionist to whom I spoke took all particulars.  I spoke in a manner to minimize the danger of the fire combusting given environmental circumstances, and she said she would just dispatch an individual to check things out, foregoing a fire truck.

A short time later three firemen appeared at our door, fully professionally garbed.  I described the situation (my husband no longer home, gone out for an appointment) and the location in some detail.  When my husband some time later returned from his appointment he saw two police squad cars, a fire truck with a dozen firemen at the trailhead to the ravine, along with the man whom he had encountered on the ravine hillside sprawled over the trunk of one of the police vehicles.

He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, taller and huskier than the police who stood beside him.  He appeared not the least bit disconcerted, with an impervious smirk plastered on his inebriated face.  My husband stopped briefly and spoke to the police; they said they had the matter under control.  Whatever that was, whatever it meant.

And we wondered, later, what might have propelled a young man decently dressed, to hive himself off on the side of a hill difficult to access, seeking privacy, drinking himself insensible, yet building a fire in a fire-vulnerable area where the fire itself would bring notice to his presence.

 Another of society's lost souls, or simply yet another cretinous idiot insulting society's values?