Heroes Under Fire

So today I was watching the news about the fires in New Mexico and Colorado. I have a real interest in these fires because my new novella, Stuff, will be coming out in the next few weeks and it is based on the Bastrop, Texas fires of last year.

I began to wonder what it would be like to be a forest fire fighter on the ground as one of these giant monsters turned on you and you found yourself inside the inferno’s engine, with little way out. That’s when I realized what heroes these guys truly are.  They don’t get to carry guns and shoot at an enemy– they carry shovels and picks and occasionally a small canister of fire retardant.

That takes guts. They, like the soldiers overseas, do get air support, but the red flame retardant dropped from the planes and helicopters is far less efficient than the smart bombs launched from drones high overhead in a war zone. And make no mistake about it, fighting a fire such as these, is every bit like being in a war zone.

In preparing for my book, I interviewed several firefighters. One, who had been in the front lines of battling the fires last summer, when the wind changed and started heading in his direction, was Lee Anderson. Here are some excerpts from my interview with Lee. “We were northwest of the blaze, knocking back hot spots, when suddenly the wind shifted and the orange line started moving directly at us. We had precious little time to escape. I have always heard people talk about your life flashing before your eyes, well it some ways mine did. As the fire got close and the heat rose, I thought I might not see my wife and kids again. There was that fear. (…) but fear itself, raises adrenaline and you do things you are not aware you could do before. My partner and I quickly dug a dirt and rock barrier line and buried ourselves behind it, waiting for the flames to approach. Our hope was the wind would push the fire so fast, that it would burn over the top of us and go past without hurting us. Lucky for us, it stopped and retraced its path twenty feet from where we hid.”

Twenty feet! That’s the width of the studio in which I sit writing this piece this morning.  Twenty feet! Real life drama. These guys live it everyday. They are the very fabric of heroes in my eyes. Out there protecting total strangers’ property, people they do not know or may never see. Putting their lives on the line against an all consuming monster.

They are doing it this summer in Colorado and in New Mexico. I am sure with the rains we have had in Texas and the growth of underbrush, we will see some later in the years as well.  And you can never count out California for a few huge fires, either. So today, my tip of the hat goes to the firefighters who battle the big blazes in the wilderness – to keep them from coming into our neighborhoods and destroying our homes.

Well done, ladies and gentlemen. Very well done.