Fire Flight

by John J. Nance

  Chapter 31

  BRYARLY, WYOMING

  Trent was snoozing in the right-hand captain’s seat of the Jet Ranger, ignoring the sound and fury around the landing zone. He was not happy to be shaken awake by Eric Wright.

  “What?”

  “Phone call from Helibase for you,” he said, holding the satellite phone out. Trent took it, metering his tone.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Jones? We need you on a rescue, if you can handle it.”

  “What, with the water bucket?”

  “No. Apparently three residents who were trying to get across the ravine, or canyon, that the bridge used to span have gotten themselves trapped near one of the spot fires.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m told they’re several hundred feet down, one of them’s turned an ankle and can’t climb, and there’s a lot of burnable brush and fuel along the river bottom that’s threatening to catch. Fortunately, one of them had a satellite phone. See if you can safely—and I emphasize safely—get down in there on one of the sandbars and get them out.”

  “Okay. I’ll take a look. You have their exact coordinates?”

  The precise latitude and longitude were recorded, and Trent motioned to Eric to off-load the cable and water bucket and get in, briefing him on the mission.

  “Should I tell anyone here on the ground where we’re going?” Eric asked.

  “No. The helibase in Jackson Hole knows. That’s good enough. When we get airborne, you can broadcast the altitude, direction, tail number, and type in the blind on the air-to-air frequency.”

  The copilot climbed aboard and secured the left-hand door as Trent lifted off from the small park and pivoted into the wind, swinging around to the west as he programmed the GPS.

  The pall of smoke and haze in the valley was increasing alarmingly, lowering overall visibility, and seemingly coming from dozens of fires between Bryarly and the ridge, where only occasional flames could be seen above the trees.

  The entire mountainside seemed to be alive with helicopters. Chinooks and Skycranes were dumping massive quantities of water in an endless series of trips to the nearby lake, and small craft such as Jet Rangers were hauling smaller amounts to douse specific trees and minor clearings that had received a flaming branch blowing down from the ridge.

  Trent checked the GPS readout. The spot was two miles ahead, and he could see a thick column of smoke rising from just to the south of where the wide ravine would be. He carefully brought the Jet Ranger in from the east, flying down the small canyon, which, at its narrowest, was about twice the width of the rotor blades’ diameter.

  I think I can do this, he mused. But I’m not going down in there until I spot them.

  He walked the Jet Ranger westbound along the channel at less than ten knots, searching through the pall of smoke for something resembling a stranded group of people.

  “There they are!” Eric called out.

  “Where? Oh, yeah.”

  Two of the three were standing on a sandbar in the narrow river and waving energetically.

  “Piece of cake,” Trent muttered as he took stock of the wind behind him. “We’ll turn around and come back so we’ll be heading down valley.”

  He pulled a little pressure on the collective control in his left hand, increasing engine speed and lift and bringing the Jet Ranger some sixty to seventy feet above the treetops along the lip of the canyon and right through a thick blanket of smoke that momentarily blocked out everything.

  “Good grief, where’s that coming from?” Trent asked.

  “Look left. That fire’s really growing. The smoke is blowing mostly across the canyon, though. It should be clear down inside.”

  Trent swung the Jet Ranger around without comment and began moving into the canyon, below the lip, approaching the sandbar and settling onto it easily. The two people who’d been waving pointed to not one, but two people on the ground.

  “Whoa, they said three total. We don’t have the lifting power for six of us at this altitude.”

  “That’s okay, Trent. I’ll stay while you get them out if you’ll come right back for me.”

  “Okay, that’s a good plan. Take one of the fire shelters though, just in case.”

  Eric grabbed one of the firefighter’s shelter packs and got out to help the four aboard, placing three in the backseat and one in the copilot’s seat. He closed the door and waved them off as he moved to the same spot on the sandbar where they’d been waiting.

  Trent pulled the Jet Ranger into a hover and pushed it forward, picking up speed as he gained altitude and lifted clear of the canyon.

  Behind, on the sandbar, Eric found a log and sat down, listening to the babbling of the shallow stream and watching the smoke sail over the top of the canyon rim.

  But there was something else going on in the canyon he hadn’t noticed earlier from the air. His attention suddenly shifted to the east, down the canyon, where an increasing amount of smoke was coming not from above, but from along the bottom of the canyon, working its way toward him.

  Oh boy, he thought. Something’s caught fire down there, and the wind’s blowing it my way.

  He glanced at his watch. The Jet Ranger’s round-trip time to Bryarly and back would be less than ten minutes, fifteen on the outside. But that was going to seem an eternity if whatever blaze was building in the riverbed began to race along the channel, burning the dry brush and grass and low bushes along the way.

  He had one season’s experience fighting fires as a member of a hand crew, and he wished now he had at least one basic tool, such as a Pulaski, the combination axe and hoe carried by many of the smokejumpers and hotshot crew members.

  He glanced at the depth of the water and shook his head. It was barely deep enough to lie down in, and there was sufficient fuel all around him to be worrisome.

  Gotta stop trying to scare myself, he thought.

  But the smoke was definitely getting thicker, and as more of it reached him, he could tell by the smell that it was, indeed, burning grass and bushes, and such fires could travel very fast.

  Eric fingered the seal on the fire shelter and jumped to his feet, looking for a stick strong enough to help uproot the dry vegetation on the sandbar on either side. It was too late to backfire the area, but the bar was mostly sand, and he could dig himself into it after rolling in the stream, if a sudden wall of flame came charging around the channel of the canyon.

  Armed with the shelter and a plan, he sat down again on the log and waited.

  HELIBASE, JACKSON HOLE AIRPORT, WYOMING

  “Grant, take a look at this latest satellite map,” one of the Operations assistants said, unfolding the freshly printed image in front of him.

  “How old?”

  “This is a GOES satellite image, five minutes ago. Infrared scan. Look at the hot spots here between the ridge and Bryarly.”

  Grant Spano put on his reading glasses and studied the image, then picked up an Agfa magnifying loupe and looked more closely, whistling under his breath as he straightened up. “Good God, there must be thirty or forty of them.”

  “Over fifty. We just counted.”

  “Does that include ones we’ve dumped water on?”

  “Grant, we’re trying hard, but we’re on the verge of losing it. We’ve got all three Skycranes flying their rotors off, but they’re going to have to return for fuel in another hour. We have six Bell 212s and two Jet Rangers with buckets trying to put them out as well, and up on top of the slope the smokejumpers are attacking two hot spots, but the lead-plane pilot—”

  “Is that Sam?”

  “Yeah. Back in the saddle. He’s reporting that it looks like one of those scenes where a grinding wheel is showering sparks off a piece of metal. He says it’s a river of firebrands flowing over the ridge to the north and spreading all over the valley above Bryarly, and it hasn’t diminished.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know, and—”

  She was interrupted by another aide h
olding out a cell phone.

  “Grant, you may want to take this.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Senator Walthers.”

  “As in U.S. Senator Jobe Walthers of Wyoming?”

  “The same.”

  He took the phone. “Senator, Grant Spano. What can I do for you?”

  The voice on the other end sounded as weary as Grant felt as he laid out Jimmy Wolf’s case for dropping water on his house.

  “Senator, I’ve already told Mr. Wolf something he didn’t want to hear, which was that our firefighting forces, such as they are, are not his private fire department, and that we can’t spare a single chopper to go wet down his roof.”

  “Why not?”

  Grant closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Because, Senator, we’re struggling against overwhelming odds to save the town. If we pull one chopper away for ten minutes to go douse his house, that could just be the pivotal element that loses the battle. Then his house and all the others get incinerated.”

  “How long would it take?”

  “For what?”

  “To pour some water on the poor man’s house?”

  “Well, he’s hardly poor…but about ten minutes, as I say. But, Senator, you can’t just—”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Spano, and with great reluctance to intervene, I nonetheless have not heard any valid reasons why this man shouldn’t get help with his house. I would appreciate it if you’d divert one of your helicopters and just get it done. The longer we argue about it, the more you’re shifting your attention from the fight that matters.”

  “Senator, I’m sorry, but we’re not going to do it.”

  “I was hoping you’d be reasonable about this, Mr. Spano. But stand by for a call from your superiors.”

  They ended the call politely, and Grant returned to the battle planning, only to be interrupted less than five minutes later by a call from Washington, D.C.

  “Mr. Spano? Chuck Bower here. I’m told you work for me?”

  “I’m sorry…who?”

  “Charles Bower. I’m the new secretary of agriculture. You’re Forest Service, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll make this brief. There’s an important fellow named Wolf needing water to protect his house in Bryarly, and you folks have been refusing his requests. Now I’ve got a couple of angry senators telling me about it. So I’m directing you to have someone accommodate the man.”

  “Mr. Secretary, you’re ordering me to pull a helicopter away just for the purpose of dropping some water on his roof?”

  “Yes, Mr. Spano. That would be an order.”

  Grant Spano rubbed his forehead and rolled his eyes. “Very well, Mr. Secretary. I’ll need you to fax that to me in writing.” He passed on his fax number, agreeing to take a handwritten version.

  Bower passed on his direct phone number and disconnected as Grant turned to the section of the overcrowded command post festooned with radios. Even across the room, he could hear the fax machine coming to life, and he waited for one of the helitack to bring it to him.

  “Thanks, Wally.” He read the written order and checked the signature before looking up. “By the way, who’s working helitack above Bryarly?”

  “Judy and Carol.”

  Grant moved quickly to the alcove where two radio operators were monitoring the helicopters working to save the town.

  “I need a helo to go dribble some water on that bastard rock star’s house.”

  “You’re kidding,” one of the men replied.

  “Don’t ask, don’t question. I’ll tell you why later. Who’s coming off the lake right now?”

  The radio operator consulted his laptop, zooming in on a particular target.

  “Ah…Skycrane Two Zero Echo Romeo.”

  “Can he do a metered release?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Just a trickle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here’s the coordinates. Tell him to go piddle on the fool’s roof and then get back to work.”

  Grant Spano turned to get back to his map table as the radio operator keyed his microphone to relay the order.

  IN FLIGHT, LEAD PLANE FOUR-TWO

  With the intensity of the fire on the south slope diminishing without crowning over to the north side, Sam began directing his efforts to the job of saving Bryarly. Tankers Eighty-eight and Ten were at the back of the queue in the holding pattern, boring circular holes in the sky, while Sam waited for the helicopters to clear the area and tried to keep an eye on Jones and her squad. It was clear that the people in the greatest immediate danger were the smokejumpers.

  The task was going to be an air-traffic-control nightmare. No fewer than twenty helicopters were buzzing like bumblebees around the valley leading from the ridge to Bryarly, and access to the small lake they were using had to be maintained. Sam’s portable radio microphones were being clipped and unclipped from his vest pockets at a furious rate as he worked to coordinate both the helicopters and airtankers on the tactical air-to-air frequency, as well as talking to “Jones plus seven” on the north slope of North Fork Ridge. After an agonizing fifteen minutes of preparation, Sam sounded the warning and led the first aircraft in for the drop, aiming to form a line of retardant just south and east of the town—a job necessitating a tight right turn across the mouth of the valley. After the third airtanker had dropped his load and headed back for a reload and return, Sam pulled back up to the altitude of the ridge to check on the smokejumpers, but other than the man left in the shelter area below the rocks, he’d lost track of the others.

  “Jones plus seven, Lead Four-Two, how’re you doing down there?”

  The female voice came back within seconds, sounding winded but strong.

  “We’re just scraping our little hearts away down here, Four-Two.”

  “Yeah, but where are you?”

  “Ah…we’re working our way downslope essentially due north of the shelter area.”

  Sam banked the King Air around to the right and dropped lower, throttling back and searching the forest for any sign of them.

  “Are you working a blaze right now?”

  “Affirmative. The only one so far straight north from that shelter, about a half mile.”

  “I have the smoke. It’s kind of wispy now—”

  “That’s what it’s supposed to be.” Karen laughed. “We are, after all, trying to put it out.”

  He flew on eastbound, turning around the end of the ridge and the mountain that intersected the ridge, with the Continental Divide running right down its twisted spine. There were very steep, heavily forested slopes, a small lake, and a draw leading from the south slope to the north that was itself heavily forested and untouched by fire retardant.

  Uh-oh, Sam thought to himself. That could easily become a pathway for the fire coming around from the south.

  Considering that possibility felt like a form of paranoia, but it was real, and the winds were shifting from southeast to east as the intense low moved south over central Idaho sucking the air around northwestern Wyoming toward it.

  He pulled one of the radios from his vest.

  “Jones, Four-Two. You guys are getting yourselves exposed if you get any farther to the east or too far downslope.”

  “What do you see up there?” she asked, the caution in her voice apparent.

  He explained the nightmare scenario once more.

  “Roger,” she replied. “But you’d see it coming if it burned around the corner, right?”

  “Affirmative. But it could happen fast, and I’ve still got some bombing to do down valley near the town. We may be slowly getting an upper hand, but remember that the winds are shifting.”

  “Okay, just please watch our tails whenever you can,” Karen replied. “Is our line on the ridge still holding?”

  “Sure is. You guys did it beautifully. You saved it. The only thing we’re fighting in the valley right now are spot fires, as well as laying down a protect
ive retardant line. The main fire front stopped at the ridge.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Jones, I wouldn’t get much lower around that slope.”

  “Copy.”

  IN FLIGHT, TANKER 88

  The oil pressure on number-three engine had been moving in strange ways for the past fifteen minutes, and Clark had called Jerry’s attention to it. Now both pilots were trying to interpret what it meant.

  “Pressure’s still good, but it’s not steady, which means a gauge.”

  Clark was shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I’ve been watching the oil temperature gauge, which doesn’t work on one and two, by the way, Jerry, but does work here. Whenever the oil pressure dips, the temp goes up. I think we’ve got a real problem.”

  “Okay, I’ll watch it.”

  “I know this isn’t good news. More engine trouble.” Clark glanced at him, his mind ranging over the dangerous possibilities of poor maintenance and inspections on the DC-6 wings and wondering just how deep the problems could be buried.

  Chapter 32

  BRYARLY, WYOMING

  Larry Black stood in the doorway of the tiny city hall and began to cough. He loved wood smoke, but there was entirely too much of it now obscuring visibility in his threatened town. He consulted the clipboard list held out by Amanda and indicated his assent. All but fifty-three residents had been airlifted out, and two-thirds of the remaining number were now on the park green waiting for the Chinook that was just touching down. Four sheriff’s deputies were racing around trying to check houses and forcibly remove those who were being stupid enough to think they could just ride it out.

  And then there was Jimmy Wolf. Larry had been surprised when he reversed his stance and let his entire household be evacuated, but Wolf himself had been parading around the middle of the street with his cell phone talking to God knew who in an effort to save his house. Suddenly, Larry noted, he’d jumped into the Humvee and burned rubber back up the road toward his house.