CHAPTER 29
Cassie’s alarm sounded, and she sat with a start, the smell of smoke permeating the small trailer. It was probably better than what Park and the rest of the Prairie crew were in, but the mattress felt like concrete, and she’d tossed and turned all night.
She sat still for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dark. She’d be at her briefing before the sun was up. What she wanted right now was a hot shower and even hotter coffee. She shrugged into her robe, grabbed her bathroom kit, and slipped outside.
After two days of bucket drops, they’d made slow progress. Smoke hung heavy in the still air. To the south, she could see a faint glow from the fire. Hopefully, the overnight crews had made good gains digging in their lines. She ached to get out there and help them, but at present air attack wasn’t allowed to go at night. They’d hammer it with everything they had today, and hopefully hit the magic number of fifty percent containment. At that point, the Guard would be released to go home. And she was more than ready to go home and give her answer to Parker.
She padded across the lawn to the shower complex, already busy with the other military personnel stationed here. She slipped into a shower stall, turning the water to as hot as it would go. Not exactly glamorous accommodations, but definitely a step up from what she’d experienced in Kandahar. At least here there was a ceiling. How many times had she bathed in nothing more than a solar shower hidden behind a curtain?
In no time, she’d made it back to her cabin and had zipped into her flight suit. She tucked her ID tags into her shirt and grabbed her flight vest. Stuffing her kneeboard and her sunglasses into her helmet bag, she shouldered it and headed out the door. The airfield was right across the street, and she was certain the coffee would be better there than anywhere else. Even though it was oh dark thirty when she arrived, the airport lobby was filled with personnel, computer equipment, and movable racks with large maps. In an out of the way spot stood a table laden with breakfast pastries, fruit, yogurt, and most important, hot hot coffee.
She made a beeline for the coffee, grabbing a cup and filling it. Parker might tease her for drinking scalding black coffee, but she’d learned to drink it that way years ago and had never gone back. Anything adulterated tasted like bad ice cream. She was so superstitious about it now, that she refused coffee before a mission unless it was black.
At seven on the nose, the Air Operations Branch Director, Mark Sheldon, a gray haired man with a goatee, began his brief. “We made good progress overnight. Teams now have lines dug here, and here.” He pointed to the perimeter of the map. “Our primary focus today will be slowing the progression of the main body.” Sheldon pointed to a line between the fire perimeter and a maze of roads. “We’ve sent two crews to dig a line on the north flank. The fire is burning steady there, but we’ve got structures to protect on the top of this ridgeline. Local firefighters have already EVAC’d the area and will begin clearing fuel.”
Sheldon paused and scanned the crowd. “Chief Warrant Officer Grace, and Warrant Officer Roy. We’ve got a helibase set up here.” He pointed to a location west and north of the fire. “Before you begin bucket drops I need you to drop two crews at this helibase. They’ll be working to construct another line here and start burning it out.”
Cassie nodded and scanned the room for Mike Roy. He was the second most experienced aviator on their crew, and piloted another of the helicopters. She liked his easygoing personality. Mike caught her eye and gave her a thumbs up.
“You’ve both landed at the helipad at camp?” asked the Incident Commander.
“Yes, sir,” Cassie answered for both of them. Their assignments yesterday had been similar. Transporting people, then switching to the Bambi buckets. Judging from the space on the map, the helibase looked to be maybe ten nautical miles from camp. With burnout equipment weighing them down, they’d have to make three, maybe four runs total before switching over to bucket drops.
The AOBD continued. “Wind looks good, but meteorology states an upper-level disturbance will be passing through this afternoon. We could have gusts up to thirty. Maybe more. We want to get as much of that handled before that front passes by. Relative Humidity is currently at fourteen percent and will likely drop this afternoon. We’ve set triggers for the hand crews to pull out if or when the RH hits single digits. Fuels are highly combustible, and these hills are forty to fifty percent beetle kill. Have your crewmen keep an eye on the smoke column. If it looks like it’s getting organized, it could blow up real fast.”
Wind would make it harder to run sling loads too. A helicopter was basically a pendulum under a rotor. The added weight of a fully loaded Bambi bucket and the increased length of its pendulum made it virtually impossible to do drops in gusty winds.
She tossed back the last of her coffee and donned her vest. She found her co-pilot, Randi, standing next to her crew chief. “I’ll get going on the flight plan. Randi, can you and Hatch start pre-flight?” The familiar surge of pre-flight adrenaline rushed through her body. Their presence here was making a big difference, and she loved that. Her crew mates left to prepare the bird, while she sat down to check weather and work on the flight plan.
Soon, they were ready to fly. Cassie climbed into the cockpit, strapped in, and glanced over at Randi. “Ready to rock ’n roll?” They’d received word that the hand crews were ready and waiting.
When the checklist for startup was complete, Cassie pulled up on the collective, pushed the cyclic forward, and in one smooth motion, lifted the aircraft and zoomed away. A quick hop over to their pickup zone, and then onto the fire. In minutes she’d touched down on the fire camp helipad, and the crews were piling in. “Make sure they’re all hooked in,” she spoke into her headset. “I don’t want anyone falling out.”
“Roger,” her crew chief responded.
Cassie fought the urge to ask about Parker. She had no idea what part of the fire he was working. He’d texted the night before that they’d been paired with the Geronimo Hotshots doing line building and burnout. But with so many people on the fire, it was impossible to keep track of any part of it except her own.
As soon as the last one was clipped in, she lifted off and banked toward the mountain. The view from above the fire never ceased to amaze her. How a fire could spread so far in just a matter of days, boggled her mind. And how the crews didn’t get lost on the ground, with so many ridges and ravines, impressed the heck out of her. She’d developed so much respect for wildland firefighters during her years flying with the Washington Guard. The US Forestry Service’s organization and infrastructure reminded her of the military. Their commitment to continuous learning and their dedication to preserving wild places inspired something deep inside her.
She spoke into the headset. “Who’s on board here this morning?”
A baritone voice answered, “I’m Victor Cruz, Assistant Supe, Geronimo Hotshots.”
“I’m CW3 Grace. Are you my contact for pickup?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Hatch back there is our crew chief. He’ll make sure you have our radio frequency. Victor, you any relation to Tony Cruz?”
He chuckled into the headset. “Flatlanders? Nah. Brother by another mother.”
But he’d heard of Parker’s team. She’d have to tell Parker that tonight. That even the hotshots were taking notice of the crew from Kansas. “You know the Flatlanders?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.
“Yeah, we worked a line with them yesterday. Good guys.”
“Yes, they are.”
The smell of smoke drifted into the helicopter. They were used to it by now, but none of them liked it. For jobs like this, the doors stayed locked in the open position so her crew could see the ground and talk her through the steps of filling the Bambi bucket. As far as she was concerned, her backenders were the real heroes on missions like this. They were required to identify rates of burn, recognize the cloud structure of a fire, and be the first to alert the Division Supe if something began to change.
Cassie landed gently in the middle of the helibase, and as soon as the firefighters were clear, she took off again. Three more rotations, and the last of the hand crews had been deposited. By now it was close to nine and the sun was peeking over the mountain, turning everything into a hazy yellow gray.
“Who’s ready to drop some water? The other two already have the lead on us today.”
“If we get the short run, we can catch ’em,” her crew chief chimed in. The four crews had a friendly wager going for the most bucket drops. Sadly they were dead last. Not because they weren’t fast, but because in addition to working on the hottest section, they’d been called in to help suppress emerging hot spots.
All morning and well into the afternoon they flew back and forth across the fire, loading bucket after bucket of water and dropping it in the hottest part of the fire. Already they’d dropped tens of thousands of gallons on the leading edge, trying to cool it enough that the hand crews could get in and contain the fire.
A gust of wind slammed into the side of the aircraft just as Cassie lowered the bucket into the water. “Hang on,” Cassie called over the headset. “Looks like that disturbance has decided to come play.” The seconds ticked by slowly as she worked to keep the helicopter steady. “Hatch, we there yet?”
“Almost,” her crew chief called.
Cassie grit her teeth as another gust hit them.
“Go,” called Hatch.
Pulling up slowly, she maneuvered the aircraft forward, senses alert for signs of bucket oscillation. As a precautionary measure, she sped up the craft then executed a slow turn, relying on centrifugal force to stabilize the load. It would take approximately three minutes to get to their drop zone. “Keep a look out for any changes in the smoke column.”
In minutes they’d dropped their payload. The wind had definitely picked up. “What do you see back there?”
Before her Hatch could answer, the Air Operations Branch Director radioed. “Chief Warrant Officer Grace, this is Mark Sheldon, can you drop your bucket? The IC wants an update. I’m getting reports of increased wind activity and ember wash igniting spot fires in advance of the line. It’s looking like the fire is gearing up for a run, and we wanna take a look.”
“We’re headed back now,” she answered. “Tell me your location?”
“Airfield.”
“Good Copy. Pick you up at the helipad nearest the tower in five.”
As they neared the airfield and were cleared to land, her crew released the Bambi Bucket. She touched down the helicopter, and thirty seconds later the AOBD crawled on board. They lifted off, and Cassie banked, the fire coming into view as she pulled around. She covered a gasp as she flew at the enormous column of smoke that hadn’t been there a few minutes before.
“Shit,” the AOBD said into his headset. “We need to find out where that’s coming from.”
“That looks to be the headfire,” Hatch answered.
“Can you go around from the top?” The AOBD asked sharply, his voice clipped. “I want to see where it’s headed.”
“Roger,” Cassie answered, banking the helicopter. “Sustained winds at thirty-five knots.”
As they flew out in front of the fire, the smoke and heat hit them. Cassie’s stomach lurched in dread. In the less than fifteen minutes from their last bucket drop to collecting the Air Operations Branch Director, the flames from the main part of the fire had jumped to the treetops and reached probably fifty feet into the air above the tops of the trees, twisting and licking the sky.
Almost directly below them, a tiny line of lights glowed next to the fireline. The hand crews burning out the underbrush to slow the fire and starve it of fuel.
“Jesus Christ” muttered the AOBD.
“Wind direction changing to the east,” called Hatch.
“It’s sucking in air,” the AOBD said tersely. “Call down to your ground contacts. Now. They need to get everyone to their safety zones. It’s making a run. If we have time, let’s start pulling them.”
“Roger. This is CW3 Grace calling Victor and Geronimo crew.”
She called to the crews again and waited for a response. A moment later Victor’s rich baritone came into her ear. “This is Geronimo crew.”
“Victor, the head fire is making a crown run in your direction. I have the AOBD aboard. Head to your safety zones. I say again. Head to your safety zones.”
“Copy that. How far away is the head fire?”
The AOBD jumped in. “About four miles. The column is starting to roll. Drop equipment and run for your zones.”
“Copy that.”
The AOBD spoke again, his voice tense. “Has this ship established radio contact with any of the Division Supes?”
Hatch answered after a moment. “Negative.”
This was bad. Not that there was anything they could do about it. They’d been following instructions. For clarity of communication, they were only in voice contact with Air Command, and a leader on the ground to coordinate crew pickup. Another bird had flown in the Division Supes and would be their point of contact.
“Can you circle back and see if anyone’s made it to the helispot?”
“Affirmative.” Cassie banked and circled again.
The AOBD radioed back. “This is Sheldon. The head of the fire is making a major run north-northeast. It’s into the crown, and the column is on fire. Everyone on the fireline should run for their safety zones.”
This time, when Cassie pulled about, a knot of dread pulled hard in her gut. A pyrocumulus column had shot hundreds of feet into the air, so powerful, it had ignited in a gaseous ball. In the time it had taken her to circle back around, the leading edge of the fire had run four, maybe five miles. She’d never seen anything like it.
The fire had rolled down one hill and raced up the next, completely engulfing the ridgeline and safety zones. The helibase where she’d dropped the fire crew this morning, was in flames that were easily two to three times the height of the trees. The fire had completely overrun everyone on the ground.
Her mind screamed NoNoNoNO as she took the helicopter as close in as she dared, looking for a sign someone was alive down below. All they could see were smoke and trees. As she banked away, a blast of hot air, hotter even than the desert in Iraq, shot through the helicopter. It took her breath away as she blinked her suddenly dry eyes back to life and worked to keep her focus on nothing but flying.
Once back to a safe distance, she found her voice. “What would you like us to do, Mark?”
The AOBD’s voice shook slightly. “Keep flying for now. Do you see anyone?”
“Negative.” Ice cold fear swept through her and stood the hairs of her neck on end. What if Parker was down there? She breathed in deep through her nose, forcing herself to stay calm. Her instructor’s voice from her earliest days in flight school sounded in her head. Keep flying. No matter what. Fly the aircraft. But the fear came viciously roaring back. No one could survive heat that intense. No one. Not even Park Kent, Superhero from Prairie. Stay focused. Fly the aircraft.
The Incident Commander’s voice broke in. “Sheldon, can you give me an update?”
The AOBD answered. “The fire overran the fireline, the safety zones, and the helibase.”
Hearing that confirmation come through her headset made her sick. There were at least forty personnel down below, if not more. You could cut the tension on board with a knife.
After a sickeningly long moment, the IC asked the question she’d been dreading. “Tell me what the potential is for serious injury or fatality.”
Fatality.
Cassie’s throat grew tight. The helpless feeling of being stuck in a dire situation with circumstances beyond her control clawed at her. Time slowed to a crawl as her mind reeled. Fighting wild land fires was not supposed to include recovery. The men on the ground were trained experts. They knew what they were doing. Didn’t they? They were supposed to be able to bring a fire to heel.
Mark’s voice cut across the crew intercom, heavy with resignation. “Do you think anyone made it?”
She glanced over at Randi who gave a single shake of her head.
Cassie banked again over the helibase, staying high enough to avoid the flames’ up drafts but low enough to keep a visual with the ground. Maybe Hatch and Mark could spot something down there if she kept circling.
Hatch was the first to break the dreadful silence. “I don’t think they made it.”
Randi answered next. “I think it would take a miracle.”
After a long pause, the AOBD asked again. “CW3 Grace?”
Oh, God. She was going to vomit. She was going to lose it here in front of her crew. For the first time in her career, she was going to be sick on the job.
“CW3 Grace?” He sounded as wrecked as she felt.
She cleared her throat, batting down a flash of anguish. “I…” She would trade places with anyone down below if it meant Parker would come out alive.
To anyone else, her voice probably sounded as calm as usual. Her co-pilot and crew chief might recognize the husky catch, but she’d been flying so long, she knew how to keep her feelings hidden. “I’m not optimistic.”