In 1996 my home and over two thousand artworks were burned to ash and stone relics by the Wheeler Point Fire in Eastern- Central Oregon, ignited accidentally by a logging company above the John Day River…I arrived home in the midst of the fire, fighting it by myself for five days, inhaling a lot of smoke, as visibility was very limited. In the process I saved two structures and a good section of our forest from burning, drawing on skills I learned working for the USFS as a Sawyer and firefighter a decade earlier. Fire is an intrinsic part of Pacific Northwest forests. Ultimately it cannot and will not be avoided. It is an indomitable force of nature that we all need to learn to live with. Mountain Bluebird and Waldo Wilderness depicts a forested landscape recovering from fires, with a bluebird, a resilient species well adapted to fire ecology making its home amidst the many fire-killed standing snags, reminding us that life truly is resilient, as are we all.