Wild Inferno Read Free Page A

traffic. The Three-Pebs had started to hike out when their superintendent gave the order for them to deploy shelters, and that’s the last anyone has heard from them.”
    â€œWell, there’s some dead spots up there,” I said.
    He looked at the map. “Yeah, the terrain looks treacherous.”
    â€œNo, I mean I couldn’t get through on the radio. Maybe…”
    He started nodding his head up and down, still searching the map for answers. “Yeah, maybe.”
    â€œAnd the firefighter I found?”
    â€œOne of the hotshots. Someone said he had a Three-Pueblos patch on his shirt.”
    â€œOh. I guess I didn’t have time to notice.”
    â€œMy guess is he couldn’t stand it in the shelter. Some guys can’t take it, lying there baking in that foil envelope while the fire rages over them. Damn! I hope the rest of the crew fared better than he did.”
    Just then, the chopper returned for another dip in the creek, and the howl of its rotors, the pressure of air beating down on us in rhythmic pulses, made communication impossible. Kerry grabbed at his map as it started to take flight and—fighting it all the while as it flapped—headed around the truck to the driver’s side. He pushed the map into the cab, climbed in behind it, and began shouting again into his radio.
    In my peripheral vision, I saw red and blue lights flashing. I turned to see the ambulance driving away. I walked to the place where it had been parked and watched it disappear down the road. I closed my eyes, made a small circle in the air with my left palm, and sent a blessing to the burning man.
    Then I turned and looked back at the conflagration behind me. This normally peaceful mountain valley with the two stone pinnacles of Chimney Rock in its center had become a war zone. On one side, an angry wind drove a hungry fire to desecrate and demolish the land, while on the other side, a helicopter’s blades thundered through the sky, and an army of green-and-yellow Nomex–clad soldiers swarmed to the line to fight a life-and-death battle. Thick smoke rolled off the inclines above and filled the saddles, but a gust of wind suddenly lifted the gray curtain. Red-orange flames on the slopes stabbed at the sky and shot in long daggers as high as seventy feet in some places. A fire whorl rose up like a thin red tornado, then disappeared between the trees, which stood in dark relief against a low, crimson glow. The heat of the monster’s breath parched my lips and made my face hurt. The forest cried out in a chorus of groans and piercing snaps and pops. Every few seconds, a large, flaming ember flew out of the sky like shrapnel and struck the road, leaving a litter of smoldering charcoal confetti sprinkled across the gravel. The high-decibel din of destruction assaulted my ears, my mind, my body. I suddenly felt as if I might faint, and then as if I were floating upward, drifting away from danger, away from the sound and the heat and the urgency. I heard my own thoughts like a voice from outside of me: Why did the burning man leave his crew? What did he mean by “save the grandmother”?
    What would make him risk incineration in a wild inferno?

3
Team Work
    Wednesday, 1330 Hours
Command and General Staff (C&G) Meeting
    Every wildfire comes down to a story. Like the dragon in tales of old, the fire makes a lair in an untamed and often inaccessible place, then proceeds to ravage the land and terrorize its citizens. The locals muster forces and fight, but when the beast proves too much for them, a call goes out for the dragon-slayers.
    My pager had sounded when I was on my way to work at a little before six a.m. that day. I hit the road with my fire gear within an hour, driving from Taos. This scene repeated across the Southwest and beyond, as more than a hundred firefighters rushed from their regular jobs, from their homes and their families and all that was routine, to join in a battle