Across fire-scarred landscapes, a quiet but profound transformation is taking place — not in policy chambers or research institutions, but within the inner lives of those who have stood close enough to a burning forest to smell the loss. What begins as environmental concern, the kind sustained by recycling and voting, is being remade by direct encounter into something older and less negotiable: reverence. This shift, from seeing forests as resources to recognizing them as entities with their own integrity, may carry consequences for how communities govern land, manage risk, and ultimately unde