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“Have a good shift. I’ll see you on Thursday, right?”
“Yeah, Thursday,” he confirms.
I close my eyes as I hear the door shut behind him and the rumble of the Challenger’s motor.
I love the sound of that car, I think before I fall back off to sleep.
And I dream of a sexy fireman and his talented mouth.
Corbin
“Did you see the update this morning, boss?” Mike asks when I walk into the station.
“No. What’s it say?”
“The National Forest Service has issued a burning ban and canceled all fire permits in the county due to hazardous forest fire conditions. Looks like fire season is here,” he informs me.
“Better keep a check on the weather band to see if they issue a red flag warning. I’ll call town hall to let them know not to issue any campfire permits.”
“You want us to ride out to all the campgrounds and post warnings?” he asks.
“Yeah, go ahead and take Nick with you. Print a warning flyer and take it by the motels and to all the cabin leasing offices, too, so they can let their visitors know. We’ll allow camp stoves for now, but no outdoor fires. When you guys get back, come and get me. The Forest Service out of Knoxville is sending us a few new forestry firefighters for training, and I want to brief them before we get started.”
He gives me a salute and heads out.
I take my phone from my backpack and stare at all the missed call notifications. I placed it on silent last night with only emergency calls enabled. Those include my mother, father, and the station dispatch.
When I checked it this morning, I had eight missed calls, several text messages, and five voice mails from Susanna.
I deleted the messages without reading them, but she’ll keep blowing up my phone if I don’t answer soon. I just don’t know what we have to say to each other at this point.
I place the calls needed to stop any fire permits from being issued and join the fellas for breakfast before the recruits arrive.
The recruits arrive around ten, and once Mike and Nick return, I gather everyone in the meeting room.
“Welcome to Valley Fire and Rescue. I’m Corbin Tuttle, and I’m the fire chief here in Balsam Ridge. The men seated to your right are one half of my crew. The other half works the opposite shift. Introduce yourself to them.
“New firefighters know all the rules. You know the textbook answers for any situation, but these guys, they know what textbooks can’t tell you. They know the exceptions to all the rules. They’ve seen the worst, and they are here to help you. At any time, if you find yourself in a situation where you don’t know what to do, say so. These guys aren’t here to judge you. They are here to help you. Don’t let ego guide you. They don’t, and you don’t either. We’re all just lifelong students of the fire service.
“Here at our station, we work seventy-two hours on and forty-eight hours off. Those shifts rotate every three months. That might sound like awesome hours to the average person, but those shifts are grueling. When you aren’t responding to accidents, medical emergencies, house fires, wildfires, or natural disasters, you are washing and inspecting equipment, cleaning your firehouse, cooking for your fellow firemen, writing reports, working on your physical fitness, participating in ongoing training and education, or sleeping. You earn those days off. You need them for you and your family’s sanity.
“A good rule of thumb is to always show up at least a half hour before you have to. It’s the best gift you can give the man or woman you are relieving. You have no idea what they had to face in those seventy-two hours. This is not awalk in the parkkind of career you’ve chosen. It comes with a lot of pressure, danger, and responsibility. You are here so that I and my men can offer you a glimpse into what it’s like to work on an engine in a high-fire zone.
“Due to climate changes, the vegetation patterns keep changing in the Smokies, and it’s causing a more dominant fire environment. Dead trees are a huge problem. That’s fuel for any fire that gets loose on our mountains. Drought and the balsam woolly adelgid, which we lovingly callthat damn beetle, are the biggest contributing factors to the dead tree problem we have in the region.
“Fire spreads quickly, and the only thing that stands between loss of life and homes is you and me. We have to trust each other. We have to know we have good eyes around us and a well-trained brother or sister at our side. You guys will be trained quickly but thoroughly. You will master your tools and learn how to make the tools do the work. You will feel the heat and the smoke. You’ll learn how to work through them safely because the goal is to be able to wash the soot off and live to fight another battle. Does anyone have any questions?”
One of the young recruits raises his hand. “I heard naps are mandatory. Is that true?”
A low murmur of chuckles floats around the room.
“When an officer tells you to take a nap, it’s not a joke or a suggestion. He wants you to go to sleep, so you’ll be worth a damn when a two a.m. call comes in. Our bunks are for sleeping, so I don’t allow phones or televisions in the dorms.”
He jots my answer in a notebook.
“Anything else?” I ask.
I look around the room, and every man sits in silence.
