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With the last of the leftovers put away, I went into the locker room and was halfway out of my boots when the alarm went off.
“Shit,” I muttered, shoving the boot that was just barely off of my toes back on and tying it.
“Chief!” a voice from the doorway called out. I looked up and saw Dwayne Austin running into the room, looking around wildly. He saw me and then kept looking as he ran to his locker. “Have you seen the chief? He was just here!”
“He left. What’s the call?”
As I spoke, a notification came in on my phone, and I glanced down at it. It was an alarm I had set to get out of the building and head to Sofia’s. I had to silence it as Dwayne started speaking.
“Came in from one of the lumber guys up on North Mountain. They said they came across a fire and have been trying to put it out but need backup. Like, a ton of it,” he said, slamming his feet into his giant rubber boots and standing to grab his jacket.
“Shit. How many people are left in the building?”
“Six,” he said. “Including you. I thought Chief was here. He could have called in backup.”
“I’ll call him,” I said. “Meet you on the truck.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and I bounded up to head back into the kitchen. While I ran, I swiped open my phone and hit the number for the chief.
“Duggan?” he asked. “Did I leave something there?”
“Negative,” I said. “Fire on North Mountain. Lumber guys are already there, but they need major backup. I’m heading out with the crew, but we think we will need more than our six.”
“Got it. I’ll call you in ten with who I can get.”
Chief McDaniel abruptly hung up, but I didn’t take it personally. He didn’t have time for niceties at the moment. I slammed the alarm button, and the sudden motion of half-sleeping guys jumping into movement seemed to liven the place up. Four men stormed past me in moments as I pulled open my texts. I wanted to message Sofia, but halfway through composing one, I heard the engine of the truck roar to life.
Shoving the phone down into my pocket of the uniform pants, I ran back into the locker and grabbed the rest of my gear, sprinting to the truck. Hopping onto the back, I looked at my watch. It had been just over a minute and a half, and the last of the boys were hopping on behind me. We were getting quicker.
“I thought the lumber guys had their own fire stuff,” Doug King said from the seat in front of me. He was one of the newer additions to the roster and only worked the night shifts. Being in his mid-twenties, he was the youngest guy on crew.
“They do,” I said. “But it’s not professionals; it’s lumber guys. They’re trained at containment but not putting out fires. That’s our job.”
“Just seems weird that they call and we go running when they have people,” he said, yawning. He must still be bitter about his nap being interrupted.
“Anyone calls and we go running,” I said. “That’s what we do. But these lumber guys have been pulling more than their own weight for a while. I made a promise to them that we would fix that.”
“Ahh,” he said. “So, this is a you thing.”
“No, this is an Ashford thing. This is a fire department thing. If they called us, it means they know it could get bad. They aren’t out there crying wolf.”
“Maybe,” he said.
I pursed my lips. I really didn’t like his attitude, and as the truck screamed down the street, headed for the access road up the mountain specifically for emergency vehicles, I was contemplating how to approach this in the next few days. Clearly, he was going to need to be spoken to, if not let go. I couldn’t have people on crew who thought that only certain parts of the town were our responsibility.
All that changed when we got to the access road and could smell the acrid, nutty smell of the fire in the distance.
“That’s a forest fire,” muttered one of the older guys on the staff. His name was Ronald, but everyone called him Red on account of his orange hair. “I know that smell. We’re in for a long night, boys.”
“Great,” Doug said sarcastically.
The rest of the ride was in silence as the truck climbed the mountain, and when we crested a hill overlooking where the call came from, we could see why it was made. Dozens of trees were on fire, and they were leading into a heavily wooded area that spread out over the mountain through a valley. This part of the valley was in direct sunlight during the day, meaning that the trees were dry and warm, perfect conditions to go up quickly at the faintest suggestion of a spark.
