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KIM BALDWIN. Crew 23 was the only thing standing between the blaze and a half dozen homes
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Crew 23 was the only thing standing between the blaze and a half dozen homes. They were cutting a F rebreak from the creek at the bottom of the hill to the rocky ridge at the top, and were more than three-quarters of the way up when the wind began to rise. It wasn’t much at F rst. The crew kept working.
The intermittent breeze quickly became a steady twenty-mile-an-hour blow, with gusts strong enough to send sparks and embers across the breach. The F reF ghters had their hands full trying to douse the spot F res springing up all around them. Their upward momentum ground to a halt.
Gable felt the heat of the F re increase as the wind sent the f ames swirling up into the higher tree branches. She glanced to her right. A back draft sent a plume of smoke over Erin, momentarily obscuring her. Gable held her breath and gripped her shovel more tightly until she reappeared.
Their radios crackled to life. The voice, a shout, belonged to Carl Buckman, who was working at the tail of the line, farther down the hill.
“23 off the hill! Move! Move! Another F re below!”
Gable spun around. Three hundred feet down the slope, thick smoke was rising in a column from the forest. They were in deep trouble, trapped between two F res. She hesitated only until Erin reached her.
They were already breathing hard as they sprinted diagonally up the hill toward safety.
The F re below them was everything the one above them was not. It sprang to life with a burst of hot energy, fanned by the wind into a blast-furnace train that howled toward them with frightening acceleration.
“Drop your tools!” Carl yelled, and as Gable tossed her shovel she heard the clatter of several others directly behind her.
She didn’t turn around. She had to watch every step as they raced upward over the rocky, uneven terrain. Erin kept pace beside her but was clearly struggling to match Gable’s long strides. No one spoke.
The world turned red around them, ref ecting the F restorm. Everything shimmered in the heat, miragelike. It was difF cult to breathe.
The heat was so intense the grass beneath their feet burst into f ames. Erin stumbled and fell. Gable paused to help her, and Carl was suddenly there too. They hauled Erin to her feet, one on either side of her, as several of the others sprinted by.
They were running for their lives.
• 190 •
FORCE OF NATURE
The two F res came together behind them, joining up into a wall of f ame that extended from the forest f oor to the top of the trees. It was a blowout—every F reF ghter’s worst nightmare. The crackling roar of the inferno was deafening, and embers rained down all around them, pelting their hard hats. The stench of burning hair assaulted Gable’s nostrils as the trio F nally reached the crest of the hill and crossed into the sanctuary of a wide, rocky ridge where the F re could not follow.
Like the others ahead of them, Gable and Erin collapsed once they were safely out of harm’s way on the other side. Erin lay on her back, her face a grimace of pain, her chest rising and falling in exaggerated gasps for air. Gable was likewise panting, on her hands and knees, struggling to calm the pounding of her heart.
“Are you all right?” she rasped.
Erin nodded, unable to speak.
They had made it, all of them, but with only feet to spare. Erin and Gable looked at each other with the shared realization of their narrow escape. Gable crawled the few feet that separated them, and they embraced, both shaking in the rush of fear and adrenaline.
“Too close, that one,” Gable whispered. Her arms and legs felt leaden.
“Gable, your hair!”
Gable took off her hard hat and ran a hand through her hair. She’d lost a fair amount in back, and it was singed to crew-cut length just behind her left ear.
“You both okay?” came Carl’s voice from above them. They pulled reluctantly apart, heads nodding in unison.
“Yeah, we’re all right. Everyone else?”
“Yup. All accounted for.” Carl’s face was almost unrecognizable under a thick layer of dirt and soot and sweat. “That was one I don’t want to repeat. We better get moving as soon as we can.”
They made it down the other side of the hill and were relieved by F reF ghters from a neighboring county. The F re claimed four homes before it was F nally contained, but no one was injured.
“Stay with me tonight?” Erin said as they were dropped off at the township F re department.
Gable smiled. “I’d like that.”
They had fallen into a routine in the weeks since they became lovers. Gable spent two or three nights a week at Erin’s, and Erin spent
• 191 •
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