Firestorm Read Free

it was clearly hopeless. Fat glowing embers began falling on their meadow, igniting small smoldering fires that the crew quickly stomped out. Reyne kept at them, shouting like a drill sergeant and vaguely aware that Jojo was seeking an alternative or an escape for them all. Reyne looked up. Oxbow was beyond the closest line of trees, approaching fast.
    “Backpacks!” she screamed over the fire’s roar. “Get rid of flammables!” All about her, hotshots threw out metal gasoline and oil bottles they carried to feed the saws and the flarelike fusees, flinging them away. On the outskirts, she saw veterans digging through rookies’ packs, taking care of them like irritated older siblings. They had left the fire line barely fifteen minutes before.
    Reyne heard her radio and struggled to make sense of what was coming through. Then she recognized Jojo’s voice. “Up here! A road!” She glanced up and through the smoke saw him waving madly.
    “Come on! Come on!” she screamed to be heard over the forest’s own mewling. Without hesitation she ran, knowing that to stay inthe meadow would be to end all their lives. Her crew ran with her. They reached the road—if it could be called that—thankful for at least the two ruts that were devoid of brush.
    There was no time to dig away stray grasses. They had a minute, maybe seconds. They immediately began deploying the fire tents, madly wrestling the foil shelters with fingers that felt stiff and un-cooperative.
    It wasn’t that they did not know how to use the tents. Each spring they spent hours training, learning how to use the corner straps with hands and feet, preparing to hold the narrow side flap down with elbows and knees.
    But Oxbow had become a full-fledged firestorm, creating its own high-velocity winds and miniature weather pattern. Instead of rain, flaming pine cones pelted the ground. Instead of clouds, choking smoke filled the air. Instead of stormy breezes cooling their bodies, breathtaking heat robbed them of oxygen. In those conditions, shaking out the tiny folded tents, setting boots into foot straps, and ending up underneath the entire contraption was a daunting challenge.
    The meadow behind them was afire.
    All around her, hotshots were swearing, fumbling, not daring to watch the fire approach. But Reyne turned. Two walls of the fire met and surged even higher, a billowing wall of orange. The flames reached a hundred feet. Two hundred. She had not seen anything like it. As entrancing and electrifying as it was, she hoped never to see it again.
Dear Jesus. Dear God in heaven. Help us!
She turned to run.
    Many crew members were already tucked under shelters, working to seal the edges with knees and elbows and, Reyne was sure, mentally preparing themselves for the coming onslaught. Theylooked like foil Jiffy Pop bags, exploding this way and that as they moved inside. Some of her team were not yet covered.
    Reyne reached Janice, a trembling rookie from Tucson, and ripped the shelter from her hands to unfurl it. “You’ll be okay!” Reyne shouted to her. Their hair flew madly about, and Reyne fought off the insane urge to laugh. “Remember your training! Seal the edges and ride it out!”
    She turned from Janice as the rookie finally got under her shelter. Next to her was Larry, on her crew for the last three years. He looked at her in macabre resignation, gesturing toward a rip in his shelter. “No!” she shouted. “Remember what they told us! Grab the rip and tuck it under you! You’ll be okay!”
    The heat became noticeably worse. Reyne glanced over her shoulder. The fire was licking at her heels. With a last look around her team, packed tightly on the road—sometimes two or three in a row—she picked her spot next to two others and frantically shook out her shelter. She dove under it, tucking and praying madly.
    Then the dragon came hunting.

C HAPTER O NE
    A PRIL, TWO YEARS LATER
M ISSOULA , M ONTANA
    R eyne took a last look in the Motel 6 mirror.