Fire Flight

by John J. Nance

  “Thank God. I’d recommend you put them on and open a cabin door, and if it gets too gamey or you lose number two, put it on autopilot and jump.”

  “Well, I’ve been meaning to ask Jerry to get this autopilot fixed,” Bill replied with a chuckle, knowing full well who was sitting in Clark’s right seat.

  Clark could almost feel Jerry grimace, as he raised a finger and hit the transmit button.

  “Bill? This is Jerry. Don’t try to save that bird if there’s anything at all risky about staying in her. I’m insured, and you guys are irreplaceable. And I’m sorry about the autopilot. I’ll kill Trent on return.”

  “Roger. But I’m a lot more concerned about that young woman and her squad back on the mountain right now than I am about a flock of old pelicans like us.”

  Chapter 34

  NORTH FLANK OF NORTH FORK RIDGE

  There was no question that the fire was going to catch them. The only thing to be determined was where they would try to survive it.

  Karen could hear the roar of the flame front rising from the east and behind her as she tried to stumble along helping Dave a few feet at a time up the steep slope, and she finally realized that he was right. There was no way.

  Going downslope would be fatal, even if they could do it rapidly. The valley would fill with smoke and flames, and there would be even more deadfall fuel the lower they went. Staying exactly where they were would also prove fatal, since they were up to their ankles in deadfall and bone-dry tinder that would instantly explode in fourteen-hundred-degree flames when the overall fire front arrived. The personal shelters repelled the radient heat, but they could do little for air temperatures approaching eighteen hundred degrees. There was no time to dwell on what death would be like inside a roasting shell of a shelter overwhelmed by heat, but the assurance of nonsurvivability was a given.

  There had to be another solution, and she forced her mind to back off from the precipice of terror she was on and think. Dave was looking at her helplessly, convinced he was spending his last minutes on earth. The roar in the background was rising slowly and steadily, though it was suddenly broken by the whine of a diving airplane, the King Air, and then a DC-6, which Karen recognized instantly as Clark’s, followed by Bill Deason’s P-3.

  “Oh, thank God!” Dave said, perceiving deliverance.

  “They’ll slow it, but they can’t stop it,” Karen said, her mind searching for a glimmer of hope. A solution.

  The bear den!

  She’d seen it when she was trailing behind the others. The problem would be finding it again.

  She mentally retraced her steps, trying to resist the panic she felt and think clearly. How far had she been downslope when she’d seen the hole? There was no time to search. She’d have to go right to it.

  She looked downslope, remembering the stand of aspen in the area of the den. She could make out aspen leaves in the distance. It was worth a try.

  “Come on! Now! Lean on me, and we’re going to do this like the old three-legged races. Coordinate our movements, okay?”

  “Where to?”

  “You’ll see. Just work hard.”

  They stepped off together, falling once, picking themselves up, and trying again, her left leg serving as his right as he maintained half his weight on her left shoulder. A hundred feet later they had developed a workable, if painful, pattern, and she was becoming adept at finding her footing even with the added hundred pounds on her left side. They stumbled past a large rock and continued on for a second before she stopped them.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  “What?”

  “Stay here,” she said, dashing off a few yards and looking up and down, and suddenly pointing at something with a broad smile.

  “I found it!”

  “Found what?” Dave asked as another airtanker screamed down the slope behind them, whining and picking up airspeed as the hiss of falling fire retardant filled their hopes.

  She came back and latched on again, guiding him the few steps to where she’d been standing.

  “See that hole down there? Like a small cave? We’re going to clear the brush from the entrance in about two minutes, hope the owner isn’t home, get ourselves inside, pull the shelters around us, and hunker down.”

  “What is that?”

  “A bear den, I think. I saw it earlier.”

  “But what if there’s a bear in there?”

  “There’s a bigger, hotter, meaner bear out here! C’mon. Let’s move!”

  Quickly they worked their way down to the opening, and she pulled out her headlamp and dropped down on her stomach, aiming the light inside. She could see the back of the den, and, although it stank and was smaller than she’d hoped, it was empty.

  With Dave working from one knee, together they pulled and hauled and scratched to clear all the vegetation away from the entrance, getting the fuels as far away as possible. Karen pulled her Woodman’s Pal from its sheath on her belt and started slashing with its blade. She’d worn the tool since picking it up on an Alaskan assignment years before. She regretted now having dropped her Pulaski earlier when she ordered the squad to run, even though it had been the right order to give. She imagined the others had reached the rocks by now, provided they hadn’t tried to double back to find Dave and her. That possibility was worrying her greatly, but her radio was apparently broken. There was no way to connect with them to order them to go on. She had to rely on their common sense.

  The roar was becoming more pronounced, and they both could see flames leaping from the tops of the trees in the distance back to the east.

  Once more a DC-6B flashed downslope trailing red liquid over the fire, this time from a different direction. She imagined it was Clark, but she couldn’t see the number on the tail. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the thick smoke was only allowing in a slight hint of the sun’s orange glow. Less than a minute later, a P-3 followed the same path, although she couldn’t see the expected cascade of red slurry streaming from its belly.

  “Okay, Dave, unfold your shelter for me and shinny in there feet-first without it.”

  “What?”

  “Both our shelters are going to keep the heat out of the hole. I need them together.”

  “Right,” he replied, squeezing himself into the hole, his head slowly disappearing. “It’s awfully tight in here.”

  “Something smaller than a bear owned it. Fold your legs!”

  “I’m trying. It’s hard with this ankle. Oh…okay, come on. I’m ready.”

  She spread open her own shelter and folded the two together before getting on her knees facing outward to began the task of worming her way inside. She was startled at how soon her feet touched the back wall of the den. She folded her legs and felt Dave helping to pull her in more, but her head was still partially exposed in the hole. Her heart sank.

  Oh, Lord! There’s not enough room to maneuver.

  She shinnied back out, hearing his muffled voice.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Plaster yourself against the back, concave, your back against it.”

  She could hear the growing roar of the fire and also his scrambling around.

  “Okay. This hurts, but come on.”

  She could feel the heat now, the flames visible through the trees, fire-bombs cascading above the tree line as the flames crowned from top to top, exploding their way even through the slurry that had clearly slowed it down.

  She knelt again and folded the combined silver shelters, bringing the combination in after her as she wiggled in again, this time folding her legs and pulling herself completely inside with barely enough room to arrange the four layers of the shelters as a plug to the entrance.

  “What are you doing?” Dave asked.

  “Hold…on…” she managed, forcing herself to avoid claustrophobic thoughts of panic as she painfully rotated around with her knees retracted against her stomach and her back holding the plug firm against the entrance from the inside.

  Th
eir only chance was a fast-moving fire. If it lingered, burning the ground cover and saturating the air and the ground with intense heat, they would either bake to death or asphyxiate from lack of oxygen.

  Karen had jammed herself into a painful fetal position, and she tried to slow her breathing and loosen her muscles and wait, but her whole body ached, and every muscle was screaming for freedom. She could hear occasional muffled sounds coming from Dave, who was pressed against her as inconveniently as any human body could be. He was speaking words of reassurance and fear, and they fully echoed her own feelings of terror greater than she’d ever experienced in her entire life. They were, indeed, in the belly of the beast.

  The roar of the fire rapidly increased to a deep, moaning rumble, the very ground shaking around them, as an unearthly muffled howl rose in pitch and filled their ears, blocking out all other sounds and all other thoughts.

  BRYARLY, WYOMING

  Jimmy Wolf had heard the mayday call from the Jet Ranger on Larry Black’s handheld VHF radio. The shock of having destroyed his own home had not worn off, but the reality that there had been a major defeat in the firefight had finally broken through his bravado. The entire eastern side of the far ridge was burning now, and moving westward along the steep, northern slopes. Unless something changed, the east wind was going to propel the fire down the funnel of the valley until it reached and obliterated Bryarly. Anyone left would likely die, and he was not ready to cash out.

  “Who’s going after the downed helicopter crew?” Jimmy asked as Larry tried to herd him into the Chinook that was sitting in the middle of the park.

  “I’ve called Jackson Helibase. They’re going to send one of the helicopters.”

  “Yeah, but they’re needed for the fires.”

  “Jimmy, just get aboard. They’ll take care of it.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m going with you. As far as we know now, we’re the last ones out, except for any survivors on the helicopter.”

  “I know where he went down.”

  “Jimmy, it’s okay. Let’s complete the evacuation. You didn’t listen to me before. This time, please listen.”

  Sixteen other residents were sitting in the maw of the helicopter gazing down their valley away from the flames now licking more than a hundred feet into the air back upslope. Destruction had been just a possibility before. Even with the spot fires, most of them thought the worst catastrophe could be avoided.

  Now all hope had been lost.

  Reluctantly, Jimmy put on his hat and climbed the short built-in stairs into the Chinook before turning and helping Larry up. The helmeted crew member who was tending the cabin, and was also the copilot, looked at Larry with a questioning glance.

  Larry Black, city manager of the doomed community, gestured for him to go ahead.

  The crewman leaned over and pulled up the door, securing it before speaking an all clear into his headset microphone. He turned and moved into the left seat to begin the before-takeoff checklist, unaware of the sudden motion behind him as Jimmy Wolf stood and flipped open the door latch, dropping the steps and clambering out, then raising the door back into place before Larry could respond.

  “Whoa! Hey, wait!” Larry yelled as he rushed toward the resecured door. The pilots saw the sudden “door open” light illuminate, but Jimmy closed it almost as fast, extinguishing the light. With the noise of the engine and the rotors rising and their headsets on, neither pilot heard Larry yelling, and they lifted off.

  Through one of the windows Larry could see Jimmy wave them off and trot back toward the village square. The copilot saw him, too, and motioned the pilot into a hover as he turned to Larry.

  “You want to set down and go get him?”

  They were in a hover fifteen feet above the park and turning slowly.

  Larry shook his head and cupped his hands, yelling at the copilot who had his headset partially pulled back.

  “No. I’ve done everything I can for that fool. Just notify the rescue force that they’ll need to pluck him out of here, too. I figure he has about two hours.”

  Jimmy turned when he reached the town square and watched the big Chinook gather speed as it headed down the valley. He could imagine the consternation of the city manager at yet one more act of defiance from his troublesome citizen with the waterlogged house.

  But Jimmy Wolf had another mission, and for the first time in too many years to remember, it felt absolutely right. When he’d first moved to his mansion in Bryarly, he’d looked around at the surrounding wilderness areas—nearly inaccessible canyons, draws, hills, and forests—and immediately paid nearly $150,000 for a custom-built, field-capable Humvee, with satellite communication, GPS, and even gas masks on board. In the years since, he had become familiar with nearly every foot of ground in a twenty-mile radius of Bryarly. He enjoyed pushing the Humvee to its limits.

  Jimmy slipped behind the wheel of the Humvee, and fired off the engine, bringing up the GPS screen and working through the buttons until he’d isolated the point near the canyon he intended to reach.

  Probably a bloody song in all of this, he thought as he maneuvered around the corner and headed west. At least I can keep Leno laughing next time I’m on.

  The southern shore of Yellowstone Lake was moving under the nose of Bill Deason’s P-3 with Clark Maxwell flying formation on the right side.

  “Bill, I see some metal damage to the cowling on number-four engine, and there’s a dent in the wing tip. Looks like one of the prop blades gouged the fuselage going from right to left, and it might have nicked your number-two prop. Is she still vibrating?”

  “Yeah, every minute or so. We’re experimenting with different power settings.”

  Dave Barret, who had backtracked to meet them, pulled up and joined on the crippled P-3’s left wing.

  “About another thirty-five miles, Bill,” Dave was saying. “Hang in there.”

  The unusual sight of three large four-engine aircraft flying overhead in formation was turning heads on the ground as tourists and rangers alike looked up, but few were able to see that the propellers were entirely missing from the right engines of the Orion.

  As they passed the middle of the lake, the vibrations returned, but this time they refused to dampen out. Bill again scanned the instrument panel as the severity steadily increased, building to such a violent shaking that he couldn’t read anything on the panel. On the left wing, he could feel the inboard left engine begin to gyrate on its mountings, which meant it was seconds away from ripping off the aircraft.

  Instinctively, Bill reached up and feathered number-two propeller, and as the huge paddlelike blades moved into alignment with the wind and the propellor ceased to rotate, the shaking diminished and stopped. They completed the engine-shutdown checklist and pushed the remaining engine to a slight overboost.

  “Can we make it like this?” Chuck Hines asked.

  “I think so,” Bill replied. They were at 10,500 feet and beginning to lose altitude with thirty miles to go over terrain ahead as high as eight thousand.

  Dave Barrett had seen the propeller on number two winding down.

  “Bill, what are you doing?” Barrett’s voice rang in their headsets.

  Bill triggered the radio and explained the shutdown, and Clark’s voice came back.

  “Bill, you’d better think about ditching her.”

  “Naw, I think we’re okay.”

  “If you get too far into the hills and can’t hold altitude, your choices are going to get pretty slim.”

  Bill looked at the rate of descent and the airspeed and ran some rough calculations in his head before turning to Chuck Hines.

  “I’m going to stick with her awhile and see if I can’t get her back home. But it’s too risky for me to commit you. You get in your chute right now, open the rear door, and jump while we’ve still got altitude and before we get over the geysers.”

  The copilot started to argue, and Bill cut him off.

  “That’s an order f
rom the skipper of this aircraft. You’re jumping. Why do you think I’ve taken the abuse all these years for being the only damn airtanker captain to carry chutes? If I don’t have you use one now, I never will live it down.”

  “I just thought you wanted ballast,” Chuck said, trying to smile, his hand shaking slightly on the yoke.

  “Naw, goes back to my sport-jumping days and a particular C-119 crash. I’ll tell you the tale back in West Yellow.”

  “I’ve heard it, Bill,” Chuck said.

  “Okay, so go get it on. Now. And open the hatch,” Bill said.

  Chuck nodded.

  “Are you sure, Bill?”

  “Go, dammit! Don’t forget to pull that D-ring the second you exit.”

  He toggled the radio. “Dave? Clark? This is Bill. Chuck is jumping. I fired him. Please mark his position, and tell me when he’s away and you have a chute.”

  There was a hesitation, and Bill thought he could feel the slight vibration as Chuck jumped.

  “Okay, Bill, he’s out and has a good chute, and he’ll be coming down in a safe location. We’re relaying his lat/long’s for pickup.”

  “Thank God. Okay, now to get her home.”

  Jerry’s voice came on frequency, his voice terse and low. “Bill, don’t try this. I don’t care about that airplane. Trim her slightly nose up, get in your chute, and bail out of there. Better yet, turn her around so you’re facing the lake.”

  “Jerry…thanks, but I think I can do this. Really. If I have to fly down the west entrance pass, I think I can keep her up here long enough.”

  If, Bill thought to himself, whatever tailwind has been helping me doesn’t die off.

  The altimeter was unwinding through ninety-eight hundred feet, and he trimmed the nose up slightly to lessen the descent rate and accept the slower airspeed, realizing too late it had been the wrong aerodynamic move. He tried to regain the speed, but he’d have to trade altitude for every knot. There were two eighty-five-hundred-foot rises he would have to get over to make it back to West Yellowstone, and he realized it wasn’t going to work.