When a Fire Burns Hot

by Corey Richard

  Groans spread around the whole of Squad Two, still seated beside their fire. More childish tittering ensued as one foul smelling pocket of air was replaced by another of increased potency.

  “Maaaan, that was a naaaasty one!”

  “Don’t nobody light a match!”

  A loud ripping noise again emitted from beneath another firefighter and the author laughed, begging attention for his creation.

  “Man what the hell you got up there, a little fuckin’ chainsaw?”

  Jim, who had been less animated than usual, chose to take the lead at last and said, “No, George’s been eating beans with them beaners over there,” knowing that Squad One was well within hearing range. “He’s already got de leetle Meeksikin peecker, now he got dem big frijoles fartas.”

  Most of the men giggled youthfully.

  Randy suppressed the urge to silence Jim. He was afraid to give rise to another divisive confrontation and dampen the squad’s spirits. Intuitively, he knew that after a day fraught with danger, the men needed to be together as a unit, particularly since the overall climate on the crew seemed to be growing increasingly hostile towards them.

  Jim reached over and slapped Randy’s knee. “Let’s go fuck with the spics,” he said, and he got to his feet, suddenly charged with energy.

  “Whatcha gonna do?” George asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know, we’ll thinka somethin’.” Jim grinned mischievously.

  “Hey Jim,” Randy said softly but firmly, “Just kick back tonight, man.”

  Jim was disappointed and slightly irritated that Randy had decided to call his party off but he sat back down, slowly. He was unwilling to shatter their unofficial truce. “You’re the boss...” he said, and forced a smile that almost passed for being genuine. “Hey, beaners... You better put that fire out or you gonna eeksplode.”

  Randy put his hand out amidst the laughter generated from Jim’s last comment. Jim found himself nodding once.

  Forty feet away, Julio lay on his side, staring in Squad Two’s direction. The steel blade of his newly sharpened Pulaski flickered in the moonlight as he released his tight grip on its handle. Moments earlier he had slipped the sheath off the tool, slowly enough that none in his squad had noticed. He tried to relax, and realized how much he had wanted Jim to come over and try to harass them. His compulsion to fight scared him. His hatred had been closer to the surface than he had expected. He was glad that his squad’s command of English was much less extensive than his own. He was glad that no one else had to again feel the indignity of being Mexican in white America. But a small part of him wished his squad members had heard and had been as incensed as he. Those who had recently come to America might not be upset. Shocked, but not upset. But those who had been in the States a while would undoubtedly have unhealed wounds that could easily bleed again.

  Julio thought about the understandings he’d long ago established with Fast Horse that hadn’t ever needed verification. He knew that not telling Fast Horse about what he had heard was, in Fast Horse’s world, a violation as egregious as not following the chain of command. He also knew that Fast Horse could take care of the problem better than anyone; but he was tired of having someone else fight his battles. He was tired of trying to hold himself in place after years of taking whatever people decided to dump on him. This was the country he had considered home, after fleeing his homeland and the debts his parents had left upon their death. He had fought and struggled to survive along the way. He would not bring his children up in this country. He knew he could be making a mistake, but he wouldn’t do it. He was going home. But he wasn’t retreating.

  A slight breeze blew. The campfire behind Julio popped, and sent a long, serpentine flame jabbing skyward into the blackness.

  Fast Horse lay curled around his fire, preparing to sleep, occasionally feeding sticks to the flames. He didn’t like being stuck on top of a mountain with an unburned forest surrounding his crew, but he knew that for now, they were safe. He wondered what was making him worry so irrationally. Or was he being irrational? He sat up and scanned the horizon for signs of fire, though he knew that it was still burning out of sight, up the canyon from them. He wished they had pulled his crew off the fire completely. He had disliked the poor planning he had witnessed, and the lackadaisical attitude of the strike team leader. The I.C. also worried him; the man had given the command to pull out too late, and they never should have been building that line so close to the fire to begin with. It made him hope he wouldn’t have to rely on any air support.

  He wondered about the next day’s plans. Weren’t the fire conditions here still too volatile to attempt an initial attack so close to the fire, even from the rear? Maybe they would pull them off tomorrow.

  Fast Horse forced himself to relax. He was out here regardless, and he knew that he would do everything in his power to protect his firefighters, as always. He wondered what he could do to improve the cohesion of the crew. He could mix the people up more, but he needed the two saws of Squad Two together at any given time. Squad Two also worked so well together that splitting them up seemed a mistake. They were one of the most skillful squads he had ever had on a crew. No, he’d work with what he had, and jump on any problems as soon as they popped up.

  Back at the camp, the I.C. eyed the steaming cup of decaf coffee on the table in front of him, and shifted uneasily in his chair. He tried to keep his mind from wandering back to the map of his forest, which he had forced himself to put away moments earlier. It was late, and he was trying to calm himself in hope of getting a few hours of sleep. It had been a long, hectic afternoon, with many of the fires jumping their lines and sending everybody scrambling.

  The Devil’s Gulch fire leapt unexpectedly into the I.C.’s mind. The men had reported some pretty fierce fire behavior, he recalled. An hour earlier, he had received a report that the flames there had died down only slightly with the appearance of the cooler night air and a covering of tens of thousands of gallons of retardant. For a while it had seemed that nothing could stop that fire, that it would have to run its course before things would return to normal. He considered the crews he had set to fly in there tomorrow: all shot crews. They would need to work fast if they were going to catch that one. He hoped he could free up more air support and send it over, but the Gulch fire was still a fairly low priority, he reminded himself. He thought again about his replanted acreage to the east of there. The little trees were safe for now, and he forced himself not to worry. What was a stand of neatly-planted ponderosas worth to him anyway? But he knew first-hand the effort that had gone into planting them. They were like children to him.

  The I.C. thought back on the crew he had spiked out on the fire - a tribal crew. They were the ones who had had the close call that day, he remembered. They were safe now, and he hoped they rested well; he would need them in good shape tomorrow. He disliked not having a shot crew in their position, but told himself not to worry. They were Indians, and were surely tough as nails, and had a lot of fire experience under their belts. He liked the idea of a tribal crew where the firefighters all came from similar backgrounds and were used to working hard together. It made them more reliable, safer to put into the thick of it.

  The I.C.’s mind quickly shifted course and traveled down a different road: a more familiar one, where a mailbox bearing his name stood, and a wife sat on the porch waiting anxiously for his return. He relaxed, leaned back in his chair, and lit a cigar. The smoke drifted upwards to hang heavily over his head, carrying his worries with it.

  Chapter 21

  Morning found the crew perched on top of a lumpy, sunken blanket of smoke, obscuring most of what lay in the valley below. On the horizon, a white haze softened the features of protruding ridges and made them appear suspended in the grayness. The only hints of the active fire were a couple of flattened columns of brown smoke bulging above the lower layer, partially obscured by the ridge running up and
away from the crew for several miles as it gained elevation.

  After forcing down some cold MREs and finishing their morning routine, the firefighters gathered for a briefing. “All right... I wanna say I was real proud of you guys yesterday,” Fast Horse began. “You did just what you should’ve done, you hunkered down and let that fire burn over us. There was no way we coulda outrun what came at us out there. Everyone stayed cool and kept their heads together. Consider yourselves veterans, and be proud.” Fast Horse beamed at his crew. “So good job, everyone!”

  “Willamette crew can handle our shit!” George announced with strutting pride. The rest of his squad also experienced a tinge of pride after hearing Fast Horse’s praise. It felt good to the men and Alice, and they felt glad to be a part of such a crew.

  Fast Horse turned serious. “But if we hadn’t set a safety zone ahead of time, we might be charcoal right now. So keep that in mind... always be aware of your safety zone. And... we stick together as a crew unless I say otherwise, which I haven’t said to any crew yet.” Fast Horse paused. “Now, we gotta put in some new line today...” The thumping of a helicopter interrupted Fast Horse, and the firefighters scanned the horizon to get a glimpse of the ship, evidence that they were not alone or forgotten.

  Fast Horse continued: “That’s the Wilson crew landin’ on the top of that ridge we came down off of yesterday. From what I hear, the fire never did escape this valley, so they’re gonna start a line up from there, and we’re s’posed to walk our way back down this hill and dig line across the valley a little ways below where we were yesterday. The idea is that eventually we’ll tie in with Wilson’s line up top.”

  “What about the line on this side?” Frank asked.

  “The cliff we passed will take care of this side, I’m guessin’. Another few crews will try to get a line around the front today if they get it knocked down from the air good enough. Might even be able to get some cats in there too. But all this depends on the weather, remember. I’ll tell you one thing... I haven’t seen fire like we saw yesterday for a long time.”

  The crew was excited that their fire had become such a major one. They felt as if they were the center of the action on the District suddenly, and not forgotten on some remote hill adjacent to an uncontrollable inferno.

  “The fire seems like it’s pretty calm down there now compared to yesterday, and the wind, if it comes at all, is s’posed to blow across the canyon toward the west -- where our bus let us off. Prob’ly some wind will blow up the canyon as well, I’m guessin’, but that still might be okay for the crews on either side as long as it don’t blow hard and they don’t try an’ circle around the front at a bad time. But still, I’m not puttin’ any money on the weather forecast today either... So, anybody got any questions?”

  “Yeah, we gonna spike out again tonight?” Roy asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it. They’re gonna leave the stuff they flew in here just in case, but we should be working our way back to our drop point where ol’ Christine’ll be waitin’, as far as I can tell.”

  Many in the crew liked the idea that they would be getting closer to the bus. It made them feel safer, almost like they were returning home.

  “Any more questions?... All right. Pack up your own shit and grab two days’ worth of MREs and some fruit. I want Squad One to pick up the trash, Squad Two needs to make sure all these campfires are completely out, and Squad Three’ll be packing up all the stuff we’re leaving here. Make sure it won’t blow around when the helicopter comes down to get it. It needs to be secure in the cargo net, an’ off to the side of the landing spot all ready to go. Oh, and Alaska, I want you to give me a humidity reading.”

  The squads dispersed and set to the tasks at hand. Alaska separated from the rest to spin his thermometers with determined importance. When he stopped to check the readings, he was surprised to find that there was a significant difference between the thermometer with the wet outer casing and the bare one. When he checked the chart, his suspicions were confirmed. The two readings combined to give a surprisingly low humidity of twentyone percent. He marveled that it might even get into the low teens by the middle of the day. He had never seen readings like that in Alaska. He wondered if he should say something, but decided that readings like that were probably not that unusual down here.

  Fast Horse, meanwhile, licked his lips. The dryness of the air troubled him. This was no ordinary morning. He walked over and asked, “What’s the reading there, Alaska?”

  “Twentyone,” Alaska said somberly.

  “Yeah, thought it might be pretty low.”

  Fast Horse remembered being on a fire where the humidity had dropped to a paltry eight. When fire finally hit the trees, they had exploded like they were soaked in gas. “Alaska, I want you to keep taking readings when I ask, so keep that thing handy. Sure as hell glad you brought it with you. I’ve been trying to get them to give me one for years.”

  “Yeah, I’m glad I brought it too,” Alaska said gravely.

  “McDaniels, Willamette crew,” Fast Horse called over the radio.

  “Go ahead, Willamette.”

  “Yeah, got a humidity reading to report of twentyone percent, over.”

  “Copy that. Probably should take another reading at noon.”

  “Copy.”

  “We’ll be watching the conditions there carefully. I’ll let you know if it looks like you should pull out. Over.”

  “Copy.”

  “Stand by, Willamette crew.”

  “Standing by,” Fast Horse said, and listened as the strike team leader talked with the I.C. on another channel.

  “Sinclair, McDaniels.”

  “Go ahead, McDaniels.”

  “Got a reading from the Gulch fire for you. Willamette crew reports twentyone percent RH. Over.”

  “Copy. Stand by.” The I.C. didn’t like the low reading and looked over his map searchingly. “McDaniels, Sinclair.”

  “Go ahead, Sinclair.”

  “We’re gonna go with an indirect line on the flank of that fire, too. I want the Willamette crew to make a line across the bottom of the valley, and I’ll send another crew in to line the east side. We’ll have the Willamette tie in to that crew’s safety zone at the base of the hill. Have Willamette stand by on Tac Two for the coordinates. Over.”

  “Copy that. McDaniels clear.” McDaniels again switched channels on his radio. “Willamette crew, McDaniels.”

  “Go ahead, McDaniels.”

  “Yeah, did you copy all that?”

  “Yeah, standing by on Tac Two.”

  “Copy. Sinclair clear.”

  Fast Horse waited for a few minutes before the I.C. called back and gave him the new coordinates. When the transmissions were over, he returned his radio to his chest and considered the import of the change of plans. Was the I.C. really fearing that the fire would back down the hill that much? The man was probably just playing it safe, he decided, and it seemed like a good call, even if another crew had to be brought in to help dig a longer line.

  Fast Horse gazed absently into the haze and momentarily forgot about the strike team leader, the I.C., and his orders. He revisited the doubts that had surfaced the day before. He knew he was a damn good crew boss; he had never doubted that. He sat down on a boulder, studied the fire below, and allowed himself a moment to reflect on his career. He remembered envisioning himself as crew boss when he first started fighting fires, and realized that every action on a fire, everything he had learned, had led him in the direction of his goal. He had wanted the position, and had gone out earned it. He had wanted to do the best he could do, and was satisfied that he had done so. This was his life’s achievement, he supposed. He could do the job of strike team leader or I.C. if given the chance, he had always known that, but even if he could somehow clear his prison record and make himself eligible for such a job, he wouldn’t want it. His place was
with the crew, and in the field; it was there he belonged, and he had no regrets. He had turned out a lot of good firefighters over the years. He didn’t know what he would do without the job; teaching at guard schools a couple times a year just wouldn’t do it, and going back to the bickering reservation wasn’t his idea of fun just yet. Too many snakes in too small a pit.

  So what about these doubts? Were they telling him that it was time to move on to new pastures? Had he been doing it too long, and was he missing something out there - like a burning snag about to fall on him because he forgot to look up? Or was he just getting paranoid in his old age? Probably all of those things.

  Frank’s squad had gathered up all the gear the crew would be leaving behind, and had placed it in the cargo net. He was a little unsure of how the net was to be hooked to the cable that would be clipped onto the helicopter’s own lead line. He played with it a while, trying various options, before settling on one. He looked over to find Fast Horse sitting nearby. “Hey, Fast Horse, this cable all right?” he called out.

  Fast Horse rose, walked over, and tugged at the net in inspection. “Looks good to me,” he said.

  “Anything more we can do?”

  “Yeah, help Squad Two put the rest of these campfires out,” Fast Horse said, a little surprised that Frank had needed to be told what to do in such a situation.

  “Sure.”

  Frank and Derrick shifted over to the last remaining campfire, and waited for Scott and Alice to bring the tools. The two men stared at the glowing coals, and both were lured deep into thought.

  Derrick recalled the texture of the long grass in the field by his home on the Res, and wondered if the old pickup with its doors gone and the springs popping out of the seats still lay in its corner. He wanted to see that truck, run his fingers along the familiar rustscarred panels, feel like he was home again.

  Frank, meanwhile, yet again reflected on the fact that he held the position of squad boss; insecurity and paranoia wouldn’t leave him entirely. He adjusted his radio so that it rested higher on his chest. It was like he was wearing a suit for the first time. Feeling almost regal but also a little selfconscious, he kept returning to the mirror to make sure he appeared convincing. He postulated that his difficulty in accepting that he was a boss stemmed from never having pictured himself in such a position. He had never considered himself fit to be in charge of others, but apparently that had been a mistake. It had always been others who tried to control him, he reflected. He heard his mother’s voice telling him that people tried to control him because he was smart and they felt threatened. This time he didn’t mind her voice echoing in his head. She was right, he decided. They were always trying to suppress his convictions with their negative attitudes and intimidation.