Editor’s note: We’re pleased to present an excerpt from Mary Pauline Lowry’s book, “Wildfire: A Novel.” Lowry worked for two years as a forest firefighter on the elite Pike Interagency Hotshot Crew based in the Pike National Forest in Colorado. She left the Hotshot crew to attend graduate school, receiving an M.A. in English from the University of Texas at Austin. “Wildfire: A Novel” follows a fictional character, Julie, the only woman on a 20-person crew, as she struggles to prove her worth and find a place of belonging in the dangerous, insular and very masculine world of firefighting.
By Mary Pauline Lowry
Nervously, I leaned against my chingadero, watching the saw team as they moved out ahead of the diggers. Rock Star limbed a tree branch, and Archie grabbed it, tossing it out and away from their saw line. The other sawyers and swampers worked behind them, cutting and clearing brush. All six members of the saw team moved ahead and out of sight, disappearing into the timber. I could see the space they’d cut through the forest, an open corridor through the trees. A smoke column in the distance was the only sign there was fire nearby.
“Okay, diggers,” Douglas called, “let’s move it out.” The Piker working lead tool started swinging, opening up a seam in the earth with the blade of his Pulaski, the next digger widened it a little with his combi, both of them bent over, all asses and elbows, their tools rising and falling with an easy, chain-gang rhythm. The rest of us would follow, making the break in the earth into a little trench twenty-four inches wide that would snake through the forest. Sam moved out next, and I fell in right beside him, digging line for the first time. I raised my tool and brought it down as hard as I could, chopping at the soil. On my third swing, my hard hat listed to the side of my head and I had to stop to straighten it. “Hurry it up, Rookie,” someone down the line yelled. “Quit messing with your PPE.” I rushed to dig again, putting everything I had into each swing.
In front of me, Sam easily skimmed chunks of grass from the top of the earth with the grub end of his Pulaski. The rest of the diggers had spread out in a line behind us, all of them chopping through roots, scraping vegetation, clearing a two-foot swath of ground. Lifting the chingadero, I brought it down hard, aiming to slice through roots that Sam hadn’t cut with his Pulaski, but more often than not, I missed them altogether, my chingadero sinking uselessly into the soil. Sweat ran down into my eyes, and I tried not to pant. My arms burned and my throat tasted copper. All up and down the single-file line, the other Pikers worked effortlessly. Even the ones who looked like they hadn’t done much all winter but sit next to their kegerator and play video games were digging like pistons.
Sam gestured to a bunch of tiny cabins scattered over the rolling, green foothills in the distance. “Folks who live in cabins like those can’t afford to lose ’em. Those ain’t vacation homes. We better put in a line that’s gonna hold.”
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Soon the sandy red soil beneath the grass and roots coated my fire boots and the hem of my Nomex pants. Sam stopped over a stubborn root yelling, “Swinging.” I stepped back, along with the three Pikers behind me. Sam raised the Pulaski and brought it down on the stubborn root, raised it and brought it down, with terrifying ferocity. He was so tall that the axhead of the Pulaski must’ve reached ten feet into the air on the upswing and each stroke rang out with a thwack. When the Pulaski severed the root with a pop, Sam moved forward again, turning the Pulaski’s handle over in his hands so that he could dig with the grub end, breaking ground with an immutable cadence. “Cut through that root at a second spot,” Sam called back to me. I started swinging on the root. By the time I’d halfway severed it, my arms threatened to fly off from the impact. Droplets of sweat rolled into my ears. A digger from down the line yelled, “Bump out of the way.”
“Hey feeble one, let me take that root,” Hawg hollered. Sam had moved easily out ahead of me, so I hustled to catch up, stepping sideways and swinging my chingadero as I went, looking back to watch Hawg cut through the root in three strong swings. His belly hung over his pants as he bent over, but his barrel chest and his arms were strong and his aim true. I couldn’t get over how clearly comfortable he was in his own build. Sturdy and thick with muscle and too much beer, he was a regular fat boy, with bright red cheeks. At the Fire Center he’d worn T-shirts that said Certified Muff Diver or Cure Breast Cancer, Save the Boobs. We all knew I’d outrun him during the timed mile and a half, but it was already clear he could dig me into the ground.
By the time I drew up alongside Sam I was panting like a rhino.
“You’re gonna wear out working like that.” Sam skipped a single swing to bend down and scoop up an arrowhead from the ground. He held it up for me to see, dropped it in his pocket, and resumed digging.
“Rock Star soldered two pounds of lead on the top of that ching for a reason. Let the weight do the work for you coming down.”
Douglas yelled for us to hustle as the sun rose over the edge of the mesa, the fire rising with it. “We gotta catch this thing before it takes off,” he said. “Sam, spin a weather.”
Sam stepped away from the fire line, pulling a little plastic box from the pocket of his cargo pants. I watched to see what he’d do with it.
“What’s the relative humidity, Sam?” Hawg asked.
Sam licked his pointer finger and rubbed it back and forth against his thumb, counting in his head. He stopped when the spit between his fingers went dry. “I’m saying eleven percent.” He fiddled with his weather kit. Looking leathery and worn, he wasn’t what anyone would call handsome — too thin and too tall. But out there on the fire line, Sam was at home; I could see it. He could tell which way was north by a glance at the vegetation on the mountains or by the moss on the trees. He poured a little water from one of his water bottles over a cotton ball attached to a string, then spun it in a wide circle.
“Doug, Sam,” Sam said, holding down the button on his radio. Douglas had wandered ahead of us as we dug, disappearing into the timber.
“Go, Sam,” Douglas’s voice crackled from the radio.
“Dry ball RH ten percent. Wet ball eleven. Winds coming from the north.”
“Sam’s the one who tells us when the wind’s shifted or the RH has dropped,” Hawg said to me, spitting to seal the importance of the fact. The information Sam gathered could easily make the difference between the fire rolling over us or the lot of us hauling ass before a blow up and making it back to our safety zone alive.
Hawg looked at me again, as if noticing me for the first time. “What are you doin’ up here anyway? Rookies dig at the end of the line.”
I stared at him.
“I’m serious.” Hawg looked down the line at Rookie Joe. “You, too, Rookie. Git!”
Rookie Joe and I exchanged a look and headed back to the end of the line.
I dug at the very end of the line of diggers, Rookie Joe in front of me. I could see he struggled worse than me, and he moved so slowly we’d fallen a bit behind the others. Flames shot up from the treetops in the distance. For the first time, I heard the roar of fire picking up speed, a sound like a deafening waterfall.
Rookie Joe swung his tool and struck a rock, which flew up, nailing him in the forehead. He staggered back, blood pouring down into his eyes. Panicked, I patted down my pockets, trying to find something to staunch the blood. I could see the fire rolling through the tops of the trees toward us.
Another glance up the line showed the Pikers still pounding out fire line, putting in a Piker superhighway as they moved quickly away from Rookie Joe and me, impervious to the danger barreling toward them. I could hear Sam’s barely audible voice, yelling, “We’re not gonna lose this one. Let’s go! Let’s go!”
And then I saw Archie running down the line toward us. He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and quickly wiped away enough blood so Rookie Joe could see. “You’re okay,” Archie said. “Just don’t fall back.”
Rookie Joe nodded, but he looked exhausted.
“Go!” Archie yelled. I turned and sprinted up the fire line, the wall of fire picking up speed as it rolled toward us. I glanced back to see Rookie Joe trip and fall on a severed tree root. Before I could consider the risk of going back to help him, Archie was already dragging him to his feet. I turned and ran at a full sprint, my feet hitting the uneven ground of our fire line, to my left the blinding heat of the flames. Up ahead I could see the rest of the Pikers still digging toward the flat open space of a giant red rock.
Behind me I could hear Rookie Joe’s panting and Archie’s voice urging him on. Up ahead I could see the Pikers hitting the safety of the rock. They’d tied their line in to the natural fire break of the inflammable red rock and now stood there looking back down the line for us.
I reached the red rock, followed by Rookie Joe and Archie, just as the great wall of fire hit our line. As if by magic, the gap we’d scratched through the forest floor stopped the towering inferno in its tracks. The flames roiled and boiled and exploded into the sky, but stayed on the black side of our fire line. It seemed unbelievable that our work could stop such a force of nature. But there it was before me. The thrill ran up and down my limbs. I had never been so close to such an inferno. I had never helped make anything as powerful as that fire line we’d scratched along the forest floor.
All twenty of us took a few steps back from the scorching heat. We stood together watching as the fire burned hot against our fire line, but didn’t cross to the other side. The modest cabins scattered across the hills stood unburned, thanks to the Pikers’ hard work and willingness to risk their lives.
I glanced over at Archie standing beside me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I wouldn’t leave you to drag that weak link to the safety zone by yourself.” He grinned. We turned back to the fire as a giant lodgepole pine along the edge of the red rock exploded, like a rocket trying to launch itself from the earth.
This article, originally published on February 26, 2015, has been updated to fix links and add additional resources.