Prairie Fire

by Tessa Layne

  The fire had rolled down one hill and raced up the next, completely engulfing the ridgeline and safety zones. The helibase where she’d dropped the fire crew this morning, was in flames that were easily two to three times the height of the trees. The fire had completely overrun everyone on the ground.

  Her mind screamed NoNoNoNO as she took the helicopter as close in as she dared, looking for a sign someone was alive down below. All they could see were smoke and trees. As she banked away, a blast of hot air, hotter even than the desert in Iraq, shot through the helicopter. It took her breath away as she blinked her suddenly dry eyes back to life and worked to keep her focus on nothing but flying.

  Once back to a safe distance, she found her voice. “What would you like us to do, Mark?”

  The AOBD’s voice shook slightly. “Keep flying for now. Do you see anyone?”

  “Negative.” Ice cold fear swept through her and stood the hairs of her neck on end. What if Parker was down there? She breathed in deep through her nose, forcing herself to stay calm. Her instructor’s voice from her earliest days in flight school sounded in her head. Keep flying. No matter what. Fly the aircraft. But the fear came viciously roaring back. No one could survive heat that intense. No one. Not even Park Kent, Superhero from Prairie. Stay focused. Fly the aircraft.

  The Incident Commander’s voice broke in. “Sheldon, can you give me an update?”

  The AOBD answered. “The fire overran the fireline, the safety zones, and the helibase.”

  Hearing that confirmation come through her headset made her sick. There were at least forty personnel down below, if not more. You could cut the tension on board with a knife.

  After a sickeningly long moment, the IC asked the question she’d been dreading. “Tell me what the potential is for serious injury or fatality.”

  Fatality.

  Cassie’s throat grew tight. The helpless feeling of being stuck in a dire situation with circumstances beyond her control clawed at her. Time slowed to a crawl as her mind reeled. Fighting wild land fires was not supposed to include recovery. The men on the ground were trained experts. They knew what they were doing. Didn’t they? They were supposed to be able to bring a fire to heel.

  Mark’s voice cut across the crew intercom, heavy with resignation. “Do you think anyone made it?”

  She glanced over at Randi who gave a single shake of her head.

  Cassie banked again over the helibase, staying high enough to avoid the flames’ up drafts but low enough to keep a visual with the ground. Maybe Hatch and Mark could spot something down there if she kept circling.

  Hatch was the first to break the dreadful silence. “I don’t think they made it.”

  Randi answered next. “I think it would take a miracle.”

  After a long pause, the AOBD asked again. “CW3 Grace?”

  Oh, God. She was going to vomit. She was going to lose it here in front of her crew. For the first time in her career, she was going to be sick on the job.

  “CW3 Grace?” He sounded as wrecked as she felt.

  She cleared her throat, batting down a flash of anguish. “I…” She would trade places with anyone down below if it meant Parker would come out alive.

  To anyone else, her voice probably sounded as calm as usual. Her co-pilot and crew chief might recognize the husky catch, but she’d been flying so long, she knew how to keep her feelings hidden. “I’m not optimistic.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Parker paused to wipe sweat from his eye. The line they’d been working for two days was looking better. Cleaner. Today would be mostly burnout and clean-up, and they could call it good.

  Their briefing had been simple this morning. Crews were to return to the previous day’s spot, double check and improve the safety zones if necessary and conduct burnout to hold the line. Relative Humidity was dangerously low, and projected to drop into the single digits today. The Division Supervisor had informed everyone that would be a pullout trigger. If the RH dropped to nine, they were to stop operations and head to the helispot for pickup. There was too much fuel from beetle kill on these hillsides to risk it.

  Winds would continue to be light until sometime in the afternoon when an upper-level disturbance would pass through bringing gusts up to thirty or more. That alone could cause a stable fire to blow-up. A bead of sweat slithered down Parker’s back, but he shivered for another reason.

  “You can feel it can’t you?” Victor Cruz, the Geronimo Hotshots’ Assistant Supe, stepped up beside him. “The fire’s gathering energy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw that look on your face. You felt it.”

  “I felt something.”

  “It’s the fire. I’ve been working fires a long time. Sometimes, man… it’s like she knows. That’s when you gotta start payin’ close attention. When you get those feelings you can’t quite explain.”

  “What do the lookouts see?”

  “Nothin’ yet. I think we’re too deep in the trees.”

  “Any word from the other side of the fire?” They’d been working north and west of the fire to head off predicted expansion based on the prevailing winds.

  “Head of the fire is staying steady.”

  “RH?”

  “Eleven.”

  So no trigger had been met. But Parker still felt uneasy. “Where are your men?”

  “Working in groups of four alongside yours.”

  “Furthest away from the helispot?”

  Victor shrugged. “Quarter, maybe a third of a mile?”

  “Do you think we need to tighten that?”

  Victor made a face. “That’s gonna be tough. Pretty much everything in close proximity to the helispot has been cleared.”

  He’d been grateful that the Geronimo team, one of the best in the nation, had taken his crew under their wing. Victor was a smart man, and a strong leader. Parker had confided in him that he was thinking of starting the process for his crew to become a hotshot team, and Victor had been very supportive.

  “For the Apache tribe, it’s helped our community,” he’d said. “It’s a good job. Stable. And we have so few opportunities.”

  Parker could identify. How many young men did he know like himself? Working two and three jobs so they could stay in Prairie. Or keep their family’s ranching legacy alive? If hotshot designation helped a few of them stay, better support their families, he was all for it. “So is it time to clear a new safety zone on the other end? Leap frog across the ridge?”

  “You’re worried about the guys on the end being too far away?”

  Parker nodded.

  Victor’s eyes crinkled. “Listen to that voice, man. Yeah, we could send these guys here down the line with a couple of my sawyers to start clearing a new safety zone.”

  “I like that. How many?”

  “Well, three saws and maybe six, seven hands, we could get it cleared in maybe an hour?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  A gust of wind blew through the treetops, bringing with it relief from the heat, and the smell of smoke. Parker’s spine tingled again. He pressed his radio button. “Tony, Mike. Take your partners plus two more and head down the line to the last Geronimo. Victor is sending his saws. Start clearing and burning out a new safety zone.”

  “Got it, boss,” Tony answered.

  Another gust brought a wisp of smoke through the trees. Odd. The fire was burning on the other side of a ridge to the west. To reach them it would have to make a run downhill, which always slowed a fire, then back up. Still, with so many snags in the forest, ripe for burning, you couldn’t be too cautious. They’d felled dozens of them over the last three days, but many of them still had limb upon limb of dead pine needles, making them ripe for torching. By felling the tree, cutting it up, and then burning out the underbrush, they hoped to limit the fire’s burning capacity when it arrived. But it was slow, rugged work. And they were just one tiny part against the fire.

  The sound of a helicopter caught his attention, and
he squinted skyward to see if he could identify it. Was it Cassie? He jammed his hand deep into his pocket, feeling for his mother’s engagement ring. It was silly of him to bring it, but it made him feel like Cassie was here with him. And he’d be giving it to her as soon as they were back home anyway. Even sooner if they managed to cross paths once the fire was contained, or they met their fourteen-day limit.

  The air suddenly seemed thicker with smoke. Were they getting spot ignitions? Had the wind picked up on the other side of the ridge? The uneasy feeling in his belly continued. Maybe he was crazy. Or just plain paranoid. Maybe it came from picking up the pieces of too many accidents and disasters, but he just felt off.

  He pressed his radio button. “Victor. It’s Park. I’m gonna hike over to the lookout.”

  “Copy. I’m scouting the new safety zone.”

  The lookout had been placed at a rocky outcrop at a point a little higher than the helispot, and about a quarter mile west. The problem was, it was also surrounded by a stand of fairly healthy Douglas fir. They’d felled a few trees to widen the lookout, but basically, the only thing their lookout could report was an increasingly organized smoke column. If that happened, his orders were to radio in, and everyone would return to the helispot for airlift out.

  Before Parker had hiked a hundred yards, the lookout’s voice crackled through his radio receiver. “Lookout to Vic and Park, lookout to Vic and Park. Smoke column has organized and is growing. And while I can’t see spot fires, it sure smells like it.”

  Another gust, this one more forceful, carried a tiny ember that landed off his shoulder. He stamped it out, but that was enough for him. He began to jog back to the helispot as he pushed his radio button. “Time to get out. Let’s get everyone gathered at the helispot.”

  Victor’s voice answered. “Copy that. Moving out.”

  When Parker arrived back at the helispot, not even three minutes later, the area had filled with smoke. Victor’s voice crackled again. “Air attack confirms a crown run four miles to our west. They recommend heading to our safety zones.”

  “Move everyone to the helispot. If it’s four miles away, that’s still the other side of the ridge west of us, we still have time to get everyone hunkered down in one place.”

  “Copy that.”

  Another ember landed in front of Parker. If the fire was still on the other side of the far ridge, they shouldn’t be seeing ember wash, unless the column was very organized and acting more like a thunderstorm than a fire. Again, he smashed it with his boot, and looked behind him.

  “Shit.”

  The smoke column towered to the southwest, a roiling angry monolith of black and orange. He could see fire inside the column, several hundred feet above the tree line.

  Immediately, he pressed his radio button. “Victor, you gotta see this. Get your guys here.” He started jogging down the line, encouraging the crews to pick up the pace. “C’mon, c’mon. Safety Zones. Get to the safety zone.”

  He started counting. They had thirty-seven to account for, not including himself, the lookout, and Victor. Fear gnawed at him. But the fire still hadn’t crested the far ridge. They should still have time.

  Until suddenly they didn’t. A wall of heat and smoke exploded through the trees. At the same time, Victor’s voice came over their emergency channel. “Everyone on the line should drop and run. Repeat. Grab your shelters. Drop and run.”

  Parker stopped and looked around. What? That made zero sense. The fire was four miles away. It couldn’t have possibly crested the ridge, run down and then uphill in a minute?

  Three crew members ran past carrying their shelters.

  Fuck.

  Whatever was going on, the call had been made, and he needed to count heads. He dropped his pack and grabbed his shelter.

  Five more ran by.

  The smoke grew thicker, and the light grew orange. He could hear the roar of the flames below him down the hill. Embers were dropping, left and right, flaming to life on the far side of the line. For a split second, he was sorely tempted to run into the trees and bat them out.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Three pairs of crewmen ran by, shelters clutched to their chests. Sweat rolled off Parker’s shoulders. He pulled his shroud up around his face. That helped a bit, but the smoke was growing thicker by the second.

  “Victor,” he shouted into the radio. “Where are you? How many do you have?”

  Victor’s voice came back broken. “Too far… too… shel… here.”

  What the fuck?

  How was he supposed to interpret that? The new zone wasn’t safe. It wasn’t even fully cleared. How many were down there with him?

  Oh, God.

  He’d sent Mike and Tony down there. Bile pooled in his stomach. And who else? Who else had he put in danger with a split second decision? He racked his brain to account for their partners, two Geronimos. And who was the third pair? C’mon, think. The fire sounded more like a tornado than he’d ever realized, and to his right, downhill, he heard the explosions of trees and pinecones.

  A straggler stumbled out of the darkness. Parker reached for him as he recognized the terrified eyes that stared up at him, unfocused with panic. He gave the young man a shake. “Rolston. C’mon. Follow me.”

  The kid was the youngest member of the Prairie fire brigade. Barely nineteen. This was his rookie season, and already he’d experienced death, and now this. He grabbed the young man by the arm and started jogging. “Pull up your shroud,” he shouted. His eyes smarted from the heat and smoke. They burst into the helispot to be greeted with an unimaginable site. Something apocalyptic and more like drawings in the comic books he’d read as a kid than anything he’d ever experienced fighting fires.

  In the center of the clearing were silver logs, flickering orange. Per their training, the crew members had deployed close together, feet toward the hottest part of the blaze. The only problem with that was that the helispot was entirely surrounded by flames twice as tall as the trees. The entire clearing glowed with a spectral orange light. Hot wind swirled around them, and the roar of the fire was other worldly.

  “Randy,” he shouted, pushing the young man. “Now. Deploy now.” The kid dropped to his knees, struggling with the tabs, his face a picture of abject terror. Not sure he could open it, Parker ripped off his gloves and grabbed the shelter, pulling on the tabs and unfolding it. It immediately inflated with the wind. “Get in,” he shouted, helping the young man into the shelter and checking it to make sure he was set.

  It hurt to breathe. He turned his face away from the hottest part and covered his nose and mouth trying to get a good breath. At the same time, he felt water running down his hands. That couldn’t be happening. There was no… oh God.

  His skin was boiling.

  He was burning.

  Adrenaline surged into his legs. The urge to run nearly short-circuited his thinking. He jogged in place as he struggled to pull the shelter out of its protective lining. But the winds were too strong. He fell to his knees, focus narrowed solely to deploying his shelter. But they’d never practiced deploying shelters from their knees. How in the hell was this supposed to work?

  Opening the folds, he gave it a shake, and it billowed out like a perfect parachute. Half crouching, and holding onto the right and left tabs for dear life, he thrust one leg, then the next into the tiny shelter. Taking a last look around at the clearing, he ducked into it and hooked his arms through the loops. His hands didn’t seem to be working. He wasn’t sure he could hold onto the shelter. He shifted and shimmied, trying to make sure that the shelter wouldn’t lift up and fill his tiny oasis with hot death-dealing gas.

  It was definitely cooler inside the shelter. But the winds were so strong he had to keep batting the top of the shelter to keep the air pocket surrounding him. He couldn’t do anything about the bottom of the shelter as it settled against the backs of his legs. Heat seared him, and he worked to steady his breathing, letting his training take over.


  The air inside the tent grew nearly as hot as what he’d experienced outside, and still, the fire raged and roared around him. He chuffed out a small laugh. He’d take an EF 5 tornado over this any day. Parker scraped at the dirt by his face and stuck his nose on the ground. The ground was hot, but not as hot as what was above him.

  This was it.

  He was going to die today.

  In a tinfoil burrito on top of a mountain.

  For one gut wrenchingly awful moment, despair overwhelmed him. Stand up, man. Just take a big breath and get it over with.

  That’s all it would take. One breath of the hot noxious gas and he’d be dead in seconds. No more worry, no more searing pain up the back of his legs or up his arms. Just peace. And quiet. And cool.

  I Love you, Park. Cassie’s voice whispered to him filling the minuscule space. He heard her voice as if she was whispering in his ear.

  Surely, he must be dying.

  Cassie was in a helicopter dropping Bambi buckets. Despair stabbed at him again. Oh God, was she watching this? Did she know where he was? Could she see what was happening? Knowing she’d already watched one person she cared about die, unable to do anything to stop it?

  And what about his mother? She’d lived through so much loss. This would break her.

  Resolve quieted his racing thoughts. His number might be up today, and those of Mike’s and Tony’s and Victor’s. Hell, maybe they were all going to die. But he would not give up. He would cling to the tiniest hope for survival with all he had. For Cassie, for his mom, for his brother and his cousins. He refused to be another tragedy for Prairie. He scrabbled to find more clean air, even as darkness pushed at the edges of his vision and it felt like the fire had burned through his shelter. He scraped the hot soil again, stuck his nose to the ground, took a shallow breath, and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER 31

  “Ma’am?” Randi’s voice broke across the silence inside the helicopter. “We’ve got to get back to refuel.”

  Shitballs.