by Cassie Cole
I felt the spotter unhook my parachute line from the guide line and connect it to the anchor behind me. Then I felt his palm pat me between the shoulders.
Without hesitation, I pulled myself through the hatch and into open sky.
My stomach flew up into my throat for the first two seconds, which lasted an eternity. Then the guide line did its job and my parachute opened, jerking me upright in my harness and digging into my thighs. I glanced up at the Sherpa, which was barely visible through the smoke. Then I looked down and waited for the wind to push us to the cleaner air of the west.
But the fires were causing chaotic winds. My parachute drifted west away from the fires, but then abruptly caught an updraft that sent me flying to the south. I clutched my air tank while I was whipped around, back to the north and then suddenly to the east. All the while I drifted closer to a ground which I still could not see.
But I knew one thing: I was falling toward the fires, not away from them.
I grunted as I suddenly crashed into the treetops. Pine boughs raked my face and arms like fingers trying to reach through the bars of my helmet to scratch my eyes out. If not for the oxygen tank I was breathing from, I might have screamed. Onward I fell, pulling my knees up toward my chest to prepare to hit the ground and roll.
My chute caught on something, and I came to an abrupt stop.
I swung gently in the tree, suspended by my harness. The smoke was thinner down here, to the point that I could actually see the ground forty of fifty feet below. It was rocky, though. No clear landing spot.
I pulled the oxygen tank away and took a test breath. The air tasted acrid, but I judged that it wasn’t dangerous.
“Hinch here,” I said into my radio. “Hanging in a tree about fifty feet above the forest floor.”
“This is Sale,” came the response. “I came down in the smoke just north of Hinch. Can assist if necessary. She’s on my way to the drop zone.”
“Confirmed,” Trace replied. “Do what you can by yourself, Hinch, but if you need help wait for Sale.”
“Copy that,” I said.
I took stock of the situation. I was hanging gently. The wind howled through the trees, a valley effect exacerbated by the fires and the injection of hot air into the system. I swung back and forth as the tree boughs above shifted with the wind. Despite all the smoke around me, the fires were still farther to the east. Being overrun by flames wasn’t a concern.
I raised my left knee up to my chest so I could reach the rope pocket next to my calf. It was thirty feet long and half an inch thick. I knew it was sturdy enough to support my bodyweight, but it didn’t look like it.
The goal was to get a second line securing me to the tree, so if the parachute lines gave out I wouldn’t plummet to the ground. Then I would unhook myself from my harness and use the secondary rope to lower myself to the ground, or to swing to the tree trunk.
I unfurled the rope. One end was weighted with a chunk of iron. I let out some slack in that end of the rope, then tossed it above me to the next closest branch. It took three tries to throw it over the branch. Once I succeeded, I tied the two dangling ends together with a sailor’s knot, tugging it tight.
“Sale, what’s your position?”
“Hell if I know,” came the response. “Can’t see shit out here.”
“I’m tracking Sale at fifty yards north of Hinch,” the spotter replied, presumably looking at the data on our personal trackers. “Keep moving due south and you’ll hit her position.”
Fifty yards in the darkness and uneven terrain of the valley, while loaded up with gear, would take Derek a few minutes. Considering how rapidly the fire was moving, I wasn’t sure I had the time to wait. If we failed to build the handline in time to protect the valley I didn’t want people blaming me for the delay in getting started.
I needed to unhook my harness, then use the secondary rope to pull myself out of it. Then I could swing out to the trunk and climb down easily.
Simple plan, I thought while unclasping the first part of the harness.
The trees shook with a big gust of wind. I felt the parachute shifting in the boughs, and then there came the sickening sound of branches cracking. I reached for the rope, but then the parachute gave out.
I fell through the air.
20
Haley
I clawed at the air while falling, trying desperately to get a grip on the backup rope. It was right in front of my face, but my gloved hands couldn’t seem to grab onto it. My stomach did a backflip and I soon realized I was going to fall to my death on my very first jump.
My fingers tightened around the rope. I slid a few feet farther before coming to a stop. The rope tugged and bounced, and creaked with strain, but held my weight.
Good thing they gave us good gear today, I thought.
Before I could relax, the rest of my parachute fell through the air next to me. It was tangled with a huge branch that had broken free and was now weighing it down.
I realized what was about to happen just in time to tighten my grip on the rope.
The heavy bundle of parachute and branches reached the end of the connecting lines and my harness abruptly tightened. I cried out as the straps dug into my thighs and chest. Then one of the lines snapped, and a second one, and the bundle of wood fell out of the parachute and the strain of weight ceased.
Wincing, I slowly lowered myself to the end of the rope. I was only ten feet off the ground then, and dropped deftly to my feet. I laid on my back and took a minute to collect myself.
Derek appeared from the smoky woods. “Aww, come on. You couldn’t let me return the favor of rescuing you from a tree?”
“Didn’t have much of a choice,” I said. “Branches broke. Had what I would call a controlled fall. But I’m alright.”
The mirth left Derek’s face. “Shit. Glad your legs aren’t broken.”
I stood up and unclipped my harness. “You mean you wouldn’t carry me to safety?”
His grin returned. “I would if I had to. But I’m glad I don’t!”
“That makes two of us.”
He helped me unhook the rest of my gear and strip my jumpsuit. Then we folded up my parachute into a carryable bundle and began walking west through the woods to get out of the smoke. The air was a lot cleaner down on the ground than it was fifty feet up, but it would be nice to get somewhere clear.
Less than a minute later, a figure came jogging up behind us. Even in his fire suit, I recognized the tall figure as Foxy. “Fancy seeing y’all out here,” he said. “What the fuck was that drop?”
“The pilot really fucked it up,” I said as we walked. “I dropped straight down into the smoke.”
“Same here,” Derek said. “Wind never carried me the way they said it would.”
“He’s definitely getting a one-star Yelp review,” Foxy replied.
We reached clear air after a few minutes, then turned south toward our original drop zone. It was a meadow adjacent to a stream, with the supply crates waiting in the grass along with the rest of our team. “This would’ve been a nice area to land in,” I muttered.
Trace was standing by the water, hands on his hips. “Commander said this was a river, but I’d barely call it a stream. Weakest anchor point I’ve ever seen.”
“What should we do?” I asked him.
He gave the stream a final glare and then turned toward me. His chiseled face was determined. “Only thing we can do. Get to work.”
Trace barked orders to the team. Another jumper and I were on chainsaw duty at the front. The tool roared to life in my hands, sending vibrations up my arms and into my chest. Trace led the way through the forest with a can of orange spray paint, plotting a path for the handline and marking the trees we needed to cut.
I approached the first tree, which was barely a sapling. I crouched low and revved the chainsaw, cutting it down as close to the ground as possible so there wouldn’t be much of a jagged stump sticking out. Within seconds the sapling was cut.
I moved to the next tree, which was larger, and started a new cut. I didn’t have to apply any force at all—the chainsaw teeth cut into the wood like a hot knife through butter.
What a difference it made having higher-quality tools.
I worked the chainsaw for an hour before Trace had us switch jobs. Derek and I cleared brush and moved the fallen trees to the safe side of the handline for the next hour, and then after that I was rotated into raking duty with the McLeod tool. After that was an hour using a Pulaski to till the ground and stir the cool mineral soil up with the topsoil.
After that I was given a break to rest and eat. The protein bar was dense with calories, and went down hard with tangy lime Gatorade, but I knew it was fuel that I would need to keep going. Just like gasoline in the chainsaws.
I occasionally heard the spotter plane flying overhead. “Fire’s slowed by one mile per hour,” he would chirp in our radio. Or, “South team, turn your handline a few degrees to the east to make sure you meet up with the north team.” Trace seemed to handle the pressures of being the team lead easily, though he paced up and down the handline when he wasn’t taking a shift, searching for any weaknesses where the fire could advance.
“Running out of time,” the spotter said during the ninth hour. “Fire’s speeding up and I don’t think we’re going to connect in time.”
“Pick up the pace!” Trace shouted to us. “We don’t want all this work to be for nothing!”
We doubled our efforts. My hands went numb from the chainsaw vibrations but I didn’t slow down. My arms and abs burned from using the McLeod and Pulaski, but I pretended it was a training exercise where I was trying to beat a personal record.
We were all silent as we fell into a groove. Cut, rake, stir, rest. Steadily the handline advanced across the valley.
I was on branch clearing duty when we met up with the north team. I could barely see them through the forest, though I could hear their chainsaws working. We let out an exhausted cheer, but we still had another half hour before our actual handlines connected. By then we could feel the heat of the looming fire, and see flickers of orange through the smoke.
Everything from that point on was a blur. We spread out among the handlines, each of us covering a section to search for imperfections or weaknesses.
Then the fire reached us.
It wasn’t a straight line, like one might expect. Instead, the curls of orange and black advanced sporadically—one advancing bulge here, or an expanding bubble that rapidly moved closer there. As the flames licked along the edge of the handline, I felt like a soldier in a trench fighting off an advancing army. A grunt in the Somme keeping the Huns at bay. No matter how good of a job we had done, there were always bits of flammable material somewhere along the handline. A piece of tree root that blended in with the mineral soil. A clump of leaves that had fallen from the treetops and landed on the edge of the fire, helping to advance it another few inches.
I walked up and down my section of the handline, wielding my Pulaski swiftly whenever I came upon a smoldering item. I covered it with cool soil, or tossed it back to the burning side of the forest. When I came across a branch that had fallen onto the handline, I had to call for help on the radio. Trace appeared with a backpack sprayer, and together we stamped out flames threatening to engulf the branch and tossed it to the burning side before it could cause any more damage.
For a fire of this intensity, tending the line took several hours. We took breaks, shifting out with other people so we could get food and water—and to rest our eyes. When it was my turn to take a breather, Foxy was the one to relieve me. He pinched my ass in passing, which made me yelp. He grinned like a mischievous little boy, which made me smile too.
“Looking good, hot stuff,” he said.
“Same to you!” I replied while jogging away. During such a dangerous job, it was nice to fool around a little. It took the edge off of how high the stakes were.
I got to sit on my behind for ten minutes before the radio crackled with alarm.
“Sale here, I’ve got a problem in section four. Flare-up is threatening to reignite across the line.”
“I’m stamping out a flare up in section nine,” Trace replied. “I’ll be your way in a few minutes, unless we’ve got a floater who can assist.”
I rose from my seat. “Hinch here. I’m on my way to assist.”
I jogged out to Derek’s section and saw the trouble he was in. There was a large pine tree on the burn-side of the line swirling with flames. The wildfire should have passed beyond it without igniting, but somehow it had caught fire and was now burning intensely. It was rooted twenty feet from our line, but if any flaming boughs fell to the ground they could blow across the line. Especially with the vicious winds swirling here, fueled by the fire’s heat.
Derek was using a McLeod to scrape mineral soil over one such flaming bough on the burn side of the line. I quickly jumped up beside him and started using my Pulaski to cover the flames.
“Sorry to cut your break short,” Derek said.
I snorted. “Don’t be. After some cold Gatorade and Ramen noodles, I feel like a million bucks!”
“You look it, too,” Derek said. Then he hastily added, “I mean, you look fresh.”
“Why, Derek,” I said while working my Pulaski. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hitting on me.”
“Shut up and help me put this out,” he said with a playful glare.
The pine tree burned hot and dropped dangerous fiery limbs down onto the area, but we succeeded in containing it on the burn-side of the line. When we’d stamped down that flare-up, I returned to my section of the handline. It was relatively calm by comparison, but I still patrolled the line while scanning the ground like a hawk for any trouble.
“No visual flames for the past five minutes,” the spotter in the airplane above eventually said on the radio. I heard cheers go up in the forest to the north and south.
“Copy that,” Trace said with satisfaction. Then he issued the next order: “Hand check.”
I stripped my gloves and crouched at the handline. Tentatively, I patted a large piece of wood that was grey and ashen. It was warm, but not hot. I used my Pulaski to cover it with cool soil.
That was the goal of the final hand check: to search for any smoldering pieces of wood that might reignite the fire after we left. Eyesight wasn’t adequate to find every heat source. It was slow work, and especially exhausting to continuously stand and then crouch down, but it was arguably the most critical part of the mission. If one smoldering limb was blown across the handline and started the wildfire anew, then all of our work had been for nothing.
It took two hours to check every inch of the line. Finally I reached the spray-painted marker indicating the end of my section. “Hinch checking in. My section’s clear.”
“Come join us for cocktails,” Foxy replied. “I make a mean whiskey sour.”
Trace jumped on the radio a moment later. “You’re relieved of your section, Hinch.”
I was so happy to be complete that I would have jogged back if I wasn’t so exhausted. Instead, I settled for a slow walk, and pretended like it was because I was double-checking the other handline sections. I passed Trace along the way, who flashed me a thumbs-up with a gloved hand.
“Nice work,” he said.
“You too, boss,” I replied with a grin. He showed a hint of a smile back, and didn’t protest being called boss this time.
When I reached the anchor point, Derek and Foxy were already there. “Looks like us three rookies finished our sections first,” Foxy said. “All the veterans can suck it.”
Derek ran a hand through his sweaty hair, which smudged the blond with grease and soot. Somehow, it made him look even more dashing. “We did good work.”
He raised his palm, and I high-fived it. His fingers clasped into mine and he held it there for a moment while staring into my eyes, then finally let go.
One of the other jumpers came striding into cam
p. “Hey, which one of you rookies had section three?” he demanded.
“Uh, I did,” I said sheepishly.
He strode up to me angrily. I began doubting everything I had done, and wondered if I had missed something that had flared up. He stopped a foot away from me, removed his helmet, and tossed it on the ground. I waited for his ridicule, and wondered what I would be able to say to defend myself.
“That’s a tidy looking line,” he finally said. “Glad to see they’re training you rookies right at McCall.”
“Th-thank you,” I said, suppressing the urge to sigh with relief.
Another smokejumper strode into base. “You know what wasn’t tidy? That fucking airdrop.”
“I know, right?” Foxy replied. “I don’t know about y’all, but I like to see where I’m landing. And I’d prefer it’s not directly into the fire.”
We laughed and joked about it, but there was a concerned tone to our banter as we packed up our gear and prepared to head home.
21
Haley
There were several different ways smokejumpers got home. In extremely remote locations, we were picked up by helicopter. But sending a chopper was expensive. Whenever possible, we had to carry our gear to a location where a bus or other vehicle could pick us up.
The mile trek through the forest to the pickup location was quiet and satisfying. We were all pleased with how the mission had gone, and with the jobs we’d done. A good day’s work. By the time we reached the fire road where the bus was waiting, I was happy to take a seat and lean against the window.
Foxy dropped into the seat next to me. The smell of smoke was heavy on him, as it was on all of us. “Excuse me, ma’am? Is this seat taken?”
I glanced out the window. We were the first two on the bus, but I was still nervous. “There’s plenty of room to spread out. If we share a seat, the others might start talking.”
Foxy faked a pout, which looked so ridiculous on the handsome man that I wanted to laugh and kiss him at the same time. “But if we don’t share a seat, how can we play grab-ass?”
