As per usual, Beale didn’t ask why, but the chopper climbed on long, ground-eating clockwise spirals. Steve could hear her on the radio with her husband getting clearance as she crossed upward through air-tanker space, lead-plane altitude, and finally up past his own drone space above the level of Incident Command—Air, six thousand feet above the fire. With the number of the people now on the fire, Henderson had climbed up and mostly directed the other lead airplanes rather than flying the routes himself to guide the big tankers.
Steve leaned out the side door of the cargo bay, the side he knew Carly would also be looking out because it gave her the best view from her seat. He stuck his head right into the wind to feel the heat and smoke, to taste the burn of conifer so different from the oak he knew so well.
It looked horrible. As bad as the 2009 Station fire in the California hills above Los Angeles or the 2012 Waldo Canyon in Colorado.
Fast little surface fires had swept the browned grasses from all of the clearings. But the deeper, duller orange of ground fire had caught in the dead branches and fallen trees. Those fires were lingering, traveling slowly behind the forefront of the racing surface fires. Settling in for a deep, tree-killing burn. They’d be back to fireweed if they couldn’t kill off those fires—and kill them quickly—but they were everywhere. They were so hot that they ignited anything nearby. The burn was even crawling back down from ridges against the slope.
And they were getting some broad sections of crown fire developing now—the fire racing from treetop to treetop, casting embers in the wind. Any remaining crown fires were going to become a disaster when the winds hit tomorrow.
***
Carly looked down and felt numb.
Steve was right. Something was wrong with her attack plan. She’d tried shrugging it off as nerves because of the survivalists. Then she’d tried attributing it to the chills that followed the warmth of Steve’s words. She’d only ever loved two men, and she’d lost both to the fire. She wasn’t going to risk that again.
But that wasn’t it.
The problem lay somewhere below. Something she could see, if she only knew how to look.
The Tillamook Burn hadn’t been the biggest in Oregon’s history, but it had certainly ranked as the most devastating. Only the Biscuit Fire in the Siskiyou Mountains in 2002 even came close. But during the Tillamook Burns, six hundred thousand acres burned in the two fires that happened during the Great Depression. Money the state lost in lumber sales. It was cash they didn’t have but spent on the firefight. Money they wouldn’t raise until the late 1940s to start the reforestation. Those two blazes had almost bankrupted Oregon out of existence, and the two that followed hadn’t helped much either.
She’d trained her whole life for such a fire, and nothing had prepared her for this. A couple years back she’d flown the Long Draw Fire, a sprawling monster of three-quarters of a million acres. But she hadn’t been lead commander. She’d made some of her reputation on that fire, but old Charlie Schmitz had led that one for MHA. Then he’d retired right after. He’d told her he was leaving the fight in good hands.
Yeah, right.
That had been a fast surface fire over rolling grasslands. This was hundred-foot fir trees, tight massed together on steep-walled valleys between thousand-foot ridges. The fuel, heat, and oxygen metrics of the Fire Triangle for this fire were completely different and a hundred times more complex than the Long Draw.
There weren’t open spans like Long Draw where you could lay down a wet line, do a backburn in front of it, and hope to God the fire couldn’t jump the gap this time.
Even the Coast Range rivers weren’t much more than glorified creeks in the heart of the Tillamook State Forest, the branches often touching from each side. A crown fire strode across them as if they weren’t even there, though at least it broke the surface fires for a while. Stopped them until the crown fire collapsed onto the forest floor and the whole cycle started over.
Beale circled them around to the south, miles and miles of timber stretched almost to the horizon before the fire would reach anything other than more fuel. The occasional homestead could be defended individually. If the fire burned all the way down to Highway 18, they’d have truly lost the battle. She couldn’t think about that right now.
The fire wasn’t moving west, so the coast towns were probably safe, but she had to watch that. They couldn’t exactly retreat out to sea if an evacuation was needed. They’d only have the winding two lanes of Highway 101 as an evacuation route if it came down to that.
She’d been fighting the north, trying to hold Highway 6 as a line for no particular reason other than it was there. A line in the sand, where she could say “this far and no further.” If the fire jumped the road, which wouldn’t even make this monster blink, it would find another five hundred square miles of the same open forest. Except for a few nutsoid survivalists and hermits, nobody lived out there either.
The crews attacking the northeast and northwest flanks, as much as there were flanks, had narrowed the area of attack from five miles wide to about three on the north edge, but they were a long way from closing that gap.
She could glance over at Steve’s tablet if she wanted and see the crews, but they were clear in her mind’s eye. Three crews of twelve smokies each, almost a tenth of the nation’s total smokejumpers, split across the flanks.
Three hotshot crews, totaling sixty guys and a few women, had marched in from as close as their Box could get them. She’d ridden in the MHA Box for only one season but could feel sympathy for them. It looked like a long ambulance with side windows and was used for just that far too often. All the gear you needed to fight a fire for weeks at a time, except for somewhere soft to sleep or a shower to clean up in.
Then continuing her clockwise rotation around the site, Emily showed the east of the fire.
From their altitude, Carly could see from the edge of the fire over the steep hills and abrupt valleys slowly rippling out to eventually flatten out into the sprawling Willamette Valley. The population pretty much ended after Cornelius and Forest Grove, turning into a spatter of farms snuggled up against the foothills.
They had to stop the fire above that, on this side of Henry Hagg Lake at the very worst.
From here, Carly could see what she hadn’t when they’d overflown it in the post-dawn light this morning.
“Clear-cuts,” she whispered over the headset.
“Clear-cuts,” Steve agreed. He’d felt the same pinch and seen the problem and solution almost as fast as she had. Damn, but she could really learn to appreciate him in ways other than wrapped together in a blanket beneath the stars.
“Henderson,” she practically shouted into the mike. “Where are you?”
“Ouch! Right here. A thousand feet below and a half mile back.”
“Look west. That’s where the wind is going to drive us.”
“Okay, so what am I looking at?”
“Clear-cuts.” Carly couldn’t help but feel smug.
“I see them, but what good do they do us? They’re so far east that it can’t matter.”
“Trust me. If that front comes in as predicted tomorrow, we could have our backs against it by afternoon.”
“No way…” She had to give him credit. He wasn’t arguing; he just didn’t believe her.
“On the Long Draw, we lost a hundred thousand acres in one night of high winds.”
“That was grasslands.”
“This is cracking-dry conifer,” Carly shot back. “It’s a repeat of the first Tillamook Burn. That’s what I was missing. Oh damn. That’s what this is. It’s a bloody replay.”
Carly tried not to be ill right on top of the Firehawk’s console. She knew that Beale wouldn’t appreciate it, for one thing.
“In 1933, they lost three hundred thousand acres in twenty hours.”
“That’s, what, almost five hundred square miles? You have got to be kidding me. Please tell me you are.”
Carly let silence be her answer
.
“Shit!”
It was the first time she’d ever heard Henderson curse. She glanced at Emily at the controls. The eyebrows raised above the line of her mirrored shades confirmed how unusual an event that might be.
She could hear Henderson take a deep breath.
“Look, we need more aviation fuel and a new plan. Let’s meet back at Cornelius. I’ll have some food waiting.”
Chapter 41
Steve looked down at the map spread across the picnic table at the Cornelius Skyport. The corners were pinned down by bags of burgers and fries. Sweating paper cups of soda sat forgotten as Carly attacked the plastic-covered map with markers.
Beale was over nursing her daughter and making the maintenance crew nervous. They were using the break to perform some quick service on the Firehawk, changing air filters and whatever else it was they did. One of the 212s came in for fuel, but it didn’t stay long.
Besides Steve and Carly, all three incident commanders were there. Henderson for air, TJ for ground, and Rick Dobson, the overall commander. Steve hadn’t really met him yet. He’d expected the IC to be older, but he was maybe early thirties, a handsome guy with black hair and blue eyes that radiated a quiet confidence.
Carly tossed a black and a red marker at Steve. “Draw the black and the fire perimeters.”
An orange marker almost hit Henderson in the chest before he caught it. “Air attack lines.”
Totally in her element, she shone like the Flame Witch that she was. She had the fire on the run, even though it was less than ten percent contained. He could feel her confidence radiating out into those around her.
Somehow, the heat in his own direction had turned up as well. He didn’t know what she saw in him, but he sure as hell wasn’t complaining.
Henderson sat down across the picnic table from Steve and began drawing.
They took turns checking the drone’s feed on the tablet. Steve re-aimed it a couple of times to double-check the line and had the outline of the black drawn fairly quickly. The fire took a bit longer because it was on the move in so many directions. Forty-five square miles, thirty thousand acres and growing.
She tossed a green marker at TJ, who’d come over for the conference. Chutes, TJ, and Betsy were supporting the smokies and the jump planes that were dropping supply loads out of Hillsboro Airport. That meant the tanker crews were at least getting Betsy’s good food, small consolation there.
“TJ, show me the crews.”
He sketched quickly. “Smokies here and here. Hotshots along these lines. Wildland engines are working to hold the southern edge along these fire roads. The local districts have mobilized a half-dozen quints.”
Only the first three of a quint fire truck’s five capacities really applied to wildfire, but the pump, hose, and built-in tanker combination was essential. If the ground ladders and extensible multistory ladder were not called for, neither were they in the way.
TJ referred to his smartphone display as he drew. “The locals we’re keeping along the west here and along this line. They’ll be even more motivated than usual since they’re defending their own turf. I’ve embedded MHA supervisors into each local.”
Locals were fine, but wildfire wasn’t their specialty. It was one thing to beat down backyard brushfire or a small wildfire that you could contain with a half-dozen crews, some cut and slash, and a backburn.
It was a whole other art to fight a fire that could leap crowns at twenty miles per hour or roar over a prairie at twice that with the right motivation. TJ knew that and had given each team someone who could help them. That thinned MHA’s resources, making it look like a bad idea at first, but it would ease communications and increase safety for the overall fire teams.
“Rick, what’s our total count?”
The Incident Commander looked up at the sky for a moment.
Steve followed his gaze. It was gray with ash. Ash that was being thrown so high by the roaring fire that it was spilling in every direction. Portland and Salem, as well as the coast towns, were already dusted. If this continued, they’d be grayed over in the next day or so.
“We’ve got about three hundred folks on this fire.”
“You need to find me another two hundred.” She phrased it as an order, completely ignoring the fact that Rick, as the Incident Commander, was her boss.
That drew Steve’s attention from the dirty skies back to Carly. They already had all of MHA’s smokies and their two hotshot crews in the field. They’d even scrounged up two more flights of smokies and another hotshot crew. Add to that the locals and all of the fire dozers in this part of the state.
Dobson wasn’t looking surprised. He was past that and merely gazing down at her speculatively. “And where do you be suggesting I get them? We’re already mobbed across state lines.” He’d added an Irish accent that, based on his looks, he could well have come by naturally.
“Don’t care where they’re mobilized from. They won’t be anywhere near the fire, so they don’t have to be firefighters. Loggers, power-line guys, tree trimmers, dozer operators, that’s what you need now.”
Rick squinted those blue eyes at Carly, then at the map, then back at her. “And what the hell are they supposed to do?”
“This.” Carly took a blue marker and slashed it down the eastern edge of the Coast Range.
***
Carly waited for them to see it.
Steve was first, of course. He knew what she was going to draw on the map almost as soon as she did herself.
While Steve and TJ had been making their markups about fire and crews, she’d drawn little boxes of each of the recent clear-cuts where the trees hadn’t grown back yet. They followed a broken line right along the edge of the state forest.
Rick was nodding his head. Clearly thinking about it and liking it more with each moment.
“Connect the dots.” Steve’s comment turned on the lightbulb for TJ and Henderson.
Then everybody started talking over each other.
She didn’t need to participate in what came next. The three Incident Commanders could take it from here. Carly rose and grabbed a bag of food and one of the big sodas.
Henderson dropped his tablet computer on the corner before it curled up, and began making notes.
She snagged Steve’s hand and headed down the runway. It felt so damn good to stretch her legs. For a hundred feet or so, he didn’t say a thing. She just tipped her head back and felt the relatively cool air of a midsummer field, one that wasn’t on fire and burning the air.
A laugh bubbled up inside her.
Before it could escape, Steve spun her into his arms and his kiss crushed down on her mouth. With those strong arms, he wrapped her so hard against his chest that she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel.
It wasn’t just a toe-curler.
All on its own, one of her legs wrapped around his hips, pulling him even tighter to her body.
When at last he moved his attention from her bruised lips to her throat, she breathed out on a sigh of the heat that had scorched up her body from the moment she’d touched his hand.
“You know it won’t be that easy.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Never is.” His voice a thrum direct from his chest to hers, his hands exploring down her back and up her sides.
For a moment she hoped that he understood she’d been talking about the fire.
The way he was making her feel, she knew the fire wasn’t the only thing that was getting out of hand.
Steve lowered her to the grass runway.
“No. Hold it, Mercer. You are not making love to me in broad daylight right in front of everybody.” Then she remembered the two of them lying naked in an old burn with a helicopter hovering overhead. “Okay, you’re not going to do it again.”
His kiss said otherwise, but he didn’t start stripping off her clothes.
Instead, he traced his fingertips down her arm to the paper bag she’d somehow retained through
his dizzying kiss.
With a slight pull, he tugged it away and opened it. After looking down at the contents, he offered her another of his smiles that didn’t make her feel naked, but rather made her wish that she was.
“So, Ms. Thomas. What are you going to have?” And he folded the bag closed and held it possessively against his chest.
She leaned forward, brushed her lips on his, and idly leaned a hand on his thigh above his injury so that her fingertips slipped along the front of his pants and all the hard heat straining against the denim.
“I’m”—she teased his lips with her tongue—“going to”—she deepened the kiss until she almost lost her direction again, but managed to recover enough to lean back by a whisper—“have this.”
She slid the bag from his nerveless fingers.
Carly was halfway through the first burger before Steve recovered enough to pull another one out of the bag.
Chapter 42
Carly checked the plan that the three ICs had cooked up. They stood in silence around the picnic table while she inspected their additional markings.
“Tell me.”
“If the fire comes this far east”—Rick pointed at Carly’s blue line—“they’ll have a good chance of stopping it. We’ll cut fire lines, as wide as possible, from one clear-cut to the next. As soon as they cut the full line, they’ll go back and cut it deeper.”
A two-hundred-foot-wide swath along a half-dozen miles. It was a task of impossible scale under any other conditions. But by connecting the old clear-cuts, two-thirds of the way was already cleared. The cleanup and salvage of such a massive amount of cutting could take months, but a hundred percent of the timber would be recoverable instead of the typical ten or twenty percent that might be salvaged from what remained inside the black. In the Tillamook Burn, they’d salvaged almost half of the old growth, just because the trees were so damn big that the core was still usable.
Henderson pointed at the markings he and TJ had added to her blue line.
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