Wild Inferno Read Free

medics!”

    A team of paramedics examined the man who—because of his powerful thermal imprint on my body—I knew only as “the burning man.” Nearby, the newly arrived firefighters began to gear up, pulling on their line packs and gloves and grabbing their tools. The percussive thwack of a helicopter’s rotors drowned out even the noise of the fire as a bucket suspended on a cable below the chopper lowered into Stollsteimer Creek with amazing accuracy, filled with water, and lifted straight up into the sky. In a matter of seconds, the ship vanished into the cloud of smoke.
    Even as the fire raged to one side of them, the crew of helmeted, yellow-shirted men and women with their distinctive, low-riding line packs calmly gathered on the road in a semicircle around Kerry, who was pointing to a map spread across the hood of his truck. When they broke, the saw team left first in their heavy chaps, carrying gas and chain saws, going ahead to fell trees and cut down the snags. Smoke hovered above the ground like low-lying fog as they disappeared into the gray haze. The remaining squad members lined out in a row, each one holding a tool on their right. Every firefighter carried fuel for the saws in addition to a forty-pound line pack, except for the last four men on the crew. They carried medical kits and sleds for moving the injured.
    I pushed the paramedic’s hand away from me. He’d been examining my eyes, asking me what year it was and who was president. “Why so many sleds?” I asked. “Just one old man up there, right?”
    â€œYou may end up looking like you got a sunburn,” he said. “Your face is a little red. Anything else hurt?”
    â€œI’m fine,” I said. “Is it the hotshot crew? Are they in trouble?”
    â€œWhat about your arm? Your shirt’s torn at the shoulder. Are you burned? Did you get hit by a snag?”
    I looked at my right shoulder, reached to touch it with my left hand. It hurt. “It’s nothing. It will be okay,” I said.
    He lifted the ripped cloth and peered under it, then straightened up. “You probably ought to have it looked at—and your face, too, just in case.” He pointed a thumb at the ambulance, where the other medics were working on the burning man. “I think they’re going to have Life Flight land on the main road. We better get him down there.”
    â€œCan you tell me what’s going on?”
    â€œWith the hotshot crew?” he said as he packed up his kit. “I heard they had to deploy shelters. We haven’t heard anything since.”
    â€œAnd the guy I found?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œIs he going to be all right?”
    He shook his head.
    â€œPlease tell me.”
    â€œIt doesn’t look good.” He tossed me a cold pack. “Put this on that shoulder,” he said, “and use that burn gel I gave you on your face.” He turned and jogged back to the ambulance.

    Kerry Reed yelled into his radio: “Charlie, get an air tanker, get anything. We need more air support. I don’t care if we’ve lost the initial attack—we’ve got firefighters in the burn, and we’ve got to get this fire flanked, or we’ll never get to them! Break.” He lowered the radio for a moment, reached under the rim of his helmet and rubbed his forehead, took a deep breath, then continued: “We’re going to tie in here at the road, try to flank to the east. I’ll get coordinates to you. Out.” He glanced up and saw me. He reached out a hand and squeezed my arm. His hand was shaking, and his grip was painfully tight.
    â€œI went up to get a man who snuck around the barricades,” I said. “I never got to him. I knew there was a crew up above there, but…what’s happened?”
    â€œI don’t know the whole story. The local team here was monitoring the Three-Pueblos Hot Shots’ radio