Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [42]
“We’ll need information about burn patterns and how they affect the different vegetation types. Some of the research Moru and I are starting on burns and their recovery should finally come to fruition.”
Dugan sighed and turned his mug in steady hands. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Fear clutched at Steve. That padded room was looking more real by the minute.
His boss swiveled toward the sun coming over the long shoulder of Mount Everts. Slanting cliffs of thick outcrop marked the face of the mountain that bordered the east side of Gardner River canyon. The river wound down to join the rushing Yellowstone in the gateway town of Gardiner. In 1959, the United States Geological Survey had settled on two different spellings for the river and the town.
Dugan steepled his fingers and let the silence lengthen. Then he cleared his throat before speaking. “I thought about what I’d do if you wanted to stay.”
Steve’s heart thudded. If he got canned, where would he go?
“I can’t blame you.” Dugan turned back to him, unsmiling. “Nothing like these fires has ever happened in Yellowstone and I wouldn’t want to miss it, either.” He stood and walked from behind his desk. On the wall hung a clipboard, holding the fire maps that had been released daily since July 25 by the Unified Area Command. Dugan put a finger on a spot in the northeast quadrant of the park, midway between Canyon and Tower Roosevelt. “I’ve got a man on Washburn that needs relief.”
Mount Washburn, southwest of Mammoth, rose to ten thousand feet, a natural vantage point for a fire tower. “You can go up,” Dugan offered, “but I need someone I can count on to call out every new smoke. Cold turkey on the booze.”
“I’ll go today.” Steve tried to sound confident.
Dugan clapped a hard hand on his shoulder. “Let me warn you. If anybody who talks to you on the radio thinks you’re drinking, I’m gonna send a chopper and pluck you off that mountain.” His broad face might have been carved of Mount Everts’ sandstone. “You won’t stop until you’re out of Yellowstone for good.”
Clare watched the troops from Fort Lewis dig line on their first trip into Yellowstone. If she breathed deeply, there was almost a hint of moisture in the air, but that was illusion, the last of the morning dew evaporating in a forest of ‘kiln dried lumber.’
On the North Fork front, the fire burned quietly through duff. Tendrils of smoke curled, the only sign that combustion was taking place beneath the carpet of needles.
There was no need for Clare to be on edge, but another bout of nightmares had her keeping a close eye on her charges. Garrett Anderson had chosen a training area that should be safe, even if the prevailing winds kicked up strongly. Her plan was to work through midday and be out of range when afternoon heat took the lid off the pressure cooker.
It was training, but somebody could still get hurt.
After Frank had been buried, Clare had not returned to the station, making only one weekend trip to work at the Texas A & M fire school. Since Buddy Simpson, her boss there, had made the call to Garrett Anderson, she felt she owed it to him not to plead the stress that was keeping her away from the station house.
Even so, she had awakened early on Saturday morning for the two-hour drive and hoped for a weather cancellation. When she arrived in College Station, the sky, blue-white with Gulf Coast humidity, promised a scorching day.
By the time she finished briefing the volunteer fire department of Toro Canyon, Texas, it was at least a hundred degrees. Each labored breath felt like the air was strained through a wet towel. Although she wasn’t going to fight the fire today, she dressed out alongside the others. Well-worn running shoes were exchanged for rubber boots, the fire coat of rough Nomex, snapped and clipped. Her short hair, already sweaty at the back of her neck, went under the Houston Fire Department helmet where it would swiftly saturate.
The loading terminal was only one of a number of scenarios used