What Should I Call This? Any Ideas?

 

Now, I clamor out of bed, pull on my Nomex pants, and stumble out the door at four am to get to requals, do a double take and run back in to grab my Incident Response Pocket Guide and check the weather. They ding you if you don’t know the weather. Fire Order Number One: Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts. Today’s gonna be hot as hell.

 

Flashback. I’m in Hell on a mission and my hand-tool is my sniper rifle. Covered in dirt, my yellow shirt turns green, and I’m swinging my shovel sideways like an axe, getting the small shrubs and rocks out of the scratch line. The sky is the color of the ground, and its raining ash like the Exodus.

 

“You ever fired a flare before?” one Hotshot asks me. I shot off the flare gun while a pro-status photographer shot the picture of me in full line gear starting a back fire off the Sierra Madre Ridge. The flare went off like a roman candle, and set the timber ablaze. The burn show was like the fourth of July on another world.

 

But Now, I sit in an auditorium trying to stay awake, listening to all these old fire guys talking about how apparently gnarly handcrews are because they die a lot. It’s my first season, but I’m thinking maybe I should have joined the handcrew instead of the engine, they see action and all the young eighteen year old firefighters are here for action.

 

“Hey if you die, make sure your parents publicize it. You’ll get more honors from the Forest Service if a news camera is on them,” says a buddy on Engine Crew 10.

 

Flashforward. The flames reach high into the night sky and the Devil Himself comes ripping over the ridge. The Inferno is like a dragon, torching tall trees and tearing up the slope of the box canyon. A person can survive third degree burns, it’s the heat wave from the nuclear flame front that kills you first. I’m with the crew, and we’ve got no radio, and someone is yelling at us from up top to get out and get out fast. There’s no time. We’re dropping our packs and tearing up the slope. There’s no footing. We’re clamoring into our fire shelters to survive getting burned over. There’s no hope. We hear horrible screaming and a sound like a freight train roaring through a dark tunnel. And then it’s all light. And I wake up.

 

Now, they’re taking us to the fatality site on Glen Allen Crest, where there’s a cross with a flag draped over it, and two smaller crosses beneath it on the slope. They’re telling us to hike down to the second cross and run up the slope to see how hard it is. Most of us made it in about 20 seconds with no gear. The second cross was only 30 feet from the top, and it took us the time it would take anyone to run across a football feild and back to get up that slope. We’re out of breath and they start telling us a story about a crew who got burned over a few years ago there. They were cutting line in a steep box canyon when the fire changed directions and shot up the canyon to the top in less than a minute. They were digging their tools into the soft sand trying to get back to the ridge. The crosses mark the spots of the ones who died. The first cross was five feet from the ridge. Five damn feet.

 

Now I’m having doubts about whether I belong. They gave me a helmet and yellow shirt and called me firefighter, but I’m just some dumb kid they picked up lifeguarding at a pool in the summer. They say the Wildland is like an action movie, you never know what kind of thrills it will throw at you, and sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re horrifically bad. Well hell, I say bring it. We’ll make our stand and if we die for bushes, well at least we died fighting for bushes. We’ll go out like warriors in a blaze of glory, but more than likely we’ll come home because our fire call got canceled and we’ll be bummed. Everyone knows that’s why us young ones are in it, for the thrills and the chills, and everyone must think we’re crazy. But while I’m contemplating suicide, I still can’t help thinking of all the ones who died.

Author's Note

Hoo-whoop holler back tool monkeys!

Reviews

[The Everyday Surprises ..]

I really like it. Lots of feeling i can visualize, feel what your describing.... amazing.

And this:
"But while I'm contemplating suicide, I still can't help thinking of all the ones who died."
that's just.... it's.. well hell i dont know exactly
i've got no idea about the title

[lark]

last term i had a lit prof whose man was a fire jumper, and he wrote on the way up to the sites. i guess i wish i had something like this to express. i've got nothing.
this is powerful, i'm sure you're aware.

this:
But while I'm contemplating suicide, I still can't help thinking of all the ones who died.
jesus. yeah. f**k. i don't even know. yeah...


and as far as a title goes, i've got nothing.

[Jaclyn]

I think I've said this before in reviews of your writing, but I truly get the feelings you have when you're fighting these fires. I can practically feel the flames melting the first layer of skin off your face. I can feel the fear, the heat, the rush, the sadness...you've got such a vividness about your writing. Is that a word? LOL Okay, I'm losing it. Time for bed. Excellent job!

[cyanskye]

Great read. The forward and backward movement of the story flows well and I can feel the excitement and anxiety.
As far as a title - maybe "Epiphany" ?

[Nicole Hellene]

No. This is all real. All of this happened. No flowery symbolism.

[flaneur]

The line "five feet from the ridge" reminded me of the lyric "six feet from the edge" (One Last Breath by Creed). I just pulled the song up on YouTube, and ironically, it really fits your story.

I'm intrigued by your analogy of raining ash being compared to Biblical manna falling from the heavens, since ashes come from fire which is a popular symbolism for hell. The analogy is great on so many levels (the job is chosen work where heaven and hell collide). Is the ash a good thing or a bad thing? Ashes are full of religious symbolism, it would be interesting if you could incorporate that into a title. Just avoid obvious cliches ("Ashes to ashes", "Rising from ashes", etc) in favor of something more descriptive and original.

[Matthew J]

Taming the Flames