When Kamante wakes Karen to warn her about the fire, the actual real-life event was not about the fire at the coffee factory, but a long, thin, winding rivulet of fire that Kamante had seen in the blackness of night as the Maasai performed their burning of the grass on the Athi plain, which was done to promote new growth grass for their cattle. They would do this not long before the long and short rains would come in October and March.