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The bandanna around my neck is soaked with sweat as the heat pours off the wall of fire up the mountain.
When we reach our go-point, I establish a grid for our line, so we can get to work.
“All right, boys! Let’s get her ready! Move, move, move!” They all jump into action like they haven’t been running on pure adrenaline for the last seventy-two hours, firing up chainsaws and getting to work cutting. They break limbs and toss them behind the line, and Hayes and Bellows clean the line with their shovels, trying to establish a hard end for our burn setup.
We’ve done this hundreds of times, and the urgency never wanes at all.
“Come on!” I yell at them, pushing them to make themselves work harder and faster, even though I know they’re all already giving one hundred and ten percent.
I grab a saw and start cutting the other end of the line, working my way toward Alpha Squad to bring our lines together.
We’re all breathing hard, and the sounds of action are jam-packed.
But when fire’s involved, time isn’t your friend. Because it can move faster, do more, take more from you in an instant than you could possibly fathom.
I’ve seen fires move fourteen miles per hour before. It might not seem like much, but when there’s only half a mile between you and the wall, that means it can be on top of you in just over two minutes.
Two minutes to process the direction of progress and the fire. Two minutes to get your men out of the way. It’s not easy, and it’s not safe, and hypervigilance doesn’t even make you entirely secure.
“Come on, come on!” I scream. “I want this ready to burn in thirty seconds, you hear me?”
Everybody picks it up, willing their bodies to move faster, work smarter.
“You got it, Supe!” Ben Mills yells enthusiastically.
He’s brand-new—practically a baby at twenty years old—but he works unbelievably well with the rest of the guys and has more spirit than a few of them combined.
His heart’s in the game, and maybe better than that, his head usually is, too.
He’s going to make a really smart Hotshot supervisor one day if he wants.
“Alpha’s ready to burn,” my radio squawks again, and I hustle to inspect the line my guys have prepared.
It’s cut thoroughly and ready to roll, so I answer Cap with an affirmative. “Bravo’s ready to burn.”
“Ten-four.”
“All right, boys!” I shout to my guys. “Get those burn cans, and let’s move! It’s time to burn! Move, move, move!”
They all scatter like ants, tossing saws and axes behind the line and picking up their cans to do as I say.
It’s a simple setup, really, but completely counterintuitive to people outside the profession.
We fight fire with fire.
We establish a burn barrier and then work our torch cans up and down the inside of it, igniting the fuel in the hopes that we’ll send our own firewall up the hill and toward the main blaze. If we can burn off all of her energy before she gets here, she’ll have nowhere to go when we’re done.
Just like it always does in the dry brush, our work spreads quickly, climbing into an inferno in under fifteen seconds and heading up the hill to the beast.
From our position, we have the advantage. Fire is a bad bitch, and she likes to climb.
It might not seem like it should, but the flames pick up speed when they’re headed uphill.
“All right, guys!” I yell loudly. “She’s going now. Time to fall back and watch her work.”
“Fuck yeah!” Hayes yells, shaking Mills excitedly.
“We got this bitch, Supe!”
I smile for the first time since we started moving to establish the line and shake my head. “Calm down, Hayes.”
“No way, baby. I can’t. Because that’s a motherfucking line!”
Everyone else cuts up, and my cheeks lift up into my eyes.
He’s right. Our line is holding, and it looks like we’ve successfully cut off the wind beneath this thing’s wings.
He should celebrate. At least, a little.
“Good job, Bravo! Hell yeah, boys. Let’s beat feet and get to the next line, so we can get the hell home, shall we?”
Because there’s plenty more work to do, but the quicker we move, the quicker we get to go home to the people we love. And I, for one, can’t fucking wait.
February 13th
Lauren
“Hey, Dr. Lauren!”
“Garrett!” God. Just like always, it’s so good to hear his voice, I could scream. He’s been gone since Sunday morning, and I haven’t seen him since Saturday night. Thanks to Jake’s police scanner app, I haven’t felt quite as crazy as I did the first time he left, but it’s still not the same as hearing him for myself. Living. Breathing. Healthy.
“Hey, babe. I’m homebound. Chopper’s due to land in San Diego in about an hour and a half.”
