Mike Smith had been a US fighter pilot for more than a decade when he took what he describes as a 'hard turn' out of the navy. He decided to trade a life of deployment, fighter jets and cruise missile operations for one of planting trees and sustainability . Though he didn't realize it at the time, the seeds for that change of pace and path were sown when he was just nine and watching a mega-fire burn through forest near his home in central Idaho. The Lowman fire wasn't enormous by today's standards , but to a boy raised in the outdoors it felt apocalyptic. The blaze burned so fiercely it formed what looked like a nuclear mushroom cloud. "It felt like the whole state was on fire at the time. It was just very, very memorable to me," Smith said.  The fire that tore through land near Mike Smith's childhood home led him to start reforesting Image: Mike Smith The fire didn't only scar his memory, but the land it tore through.…