First Firefight

I felt imprisoned by school and had to break out, anxious to get into it, a tender moth hell bent to leap into the flame. The U.S. Forest Service was rich with promise. I would shed my books, sweaters, and myopia, and take up arms in a gloriously moral equivalent of war: fighting forest fires. I signed on, purchased uniforms, did my push-ups and hill climbs, suffered abuse from my mentors, learned what I could in fire school, set up housekeeping in the East Fork barracks, worked on projects, and . . . waited. It began slowly, and seemed as if I would never see what I’d come for. Finally, in late October we were dispatched to a big one.

    1964, Santa Barbara, California. We are setting up to protect houses in an oak covered canyon at night, and our hose defenses are in place. It had been insane so far. We’d almost gotten cooked twice and the fire had burned right through fire camp. Now we are getting ready to save homes built in an indefensible tunnel of trees they thought never would burn.

Standard Run and Gun, we’d been directed; the fire is approaching from uphill so protect the house on the top till the fire goes past then pull back to the next. Things have worked differently. The fire has blown underneath us by the crazy wind, and it is at least 95 degrees in the middle of the night. A deep glow surrounds us, diffused by the thickening smoke. The rest of the crew is positioned around the structure. I am standing on the road above the house, my hose hooked up to a hydrant—an unlimited water source. My job is to put out the spots and keep it from crossing. I am impatient.

    It comes like a screaming red tornado. The flames are thirty or forty feet high as the preheated brush and scrub oak nearly explodes. In a minute the entire uphill side is burning and sparks and burning debris cascade down to the other side. I alternate hitting the spots below me with a straight stream and trying to cool down the wall of flame. It gets hotter.

And better. Any idiot would be terrified but I find myself turned on. Oblivious to the obvious danger, not caring that I am driven to my knees with the intense reflective heat from the flames on both sides, I take joy in holding my ground. No longer caring at all that the fire had jumped the road and was on the verge of creating a total rout, I am lost in the fight. The outcome simply doesn’t matter. The doors to hell have been breached, and I loose myself in the passionate embrace of the unholy. I truly love it here.

    Perhaps Nirvana is the product of Shiva’s sword, rather than quiet contemplation.    Surrounded by twisting entrails of flame, where the light has become silver and an angelic chorus sings beyond hearing, I have finally found the navel of the world. This is the center of the holy city, the eye of God. I have come home to a place I’d never imagined, to a time without time. Eternity, it seems, has come to life.

    I become aware of a frantic beating on my back and helmet, and hands begin to drag me backwards. “Oh, no,” I think, “Not now, I finally just got here!”

    “Hey,” Coop hollers in my ear, “It’s time to boogey!”

    I reluctantly fall back from the point position, carefully dragging the hose as I go. 

“Drop it, Stupid!” yells John. I didn’t know he is here too. They each grab my coat by the shoulders and shove me rudely back down the road toward the engine. The fire is burning everywhere, and I see the Captain disconnecting hoses from the engine. Evidently he had sent Coop and John to retrieve me. We are going to retreat. "You're damn lucky we found you,” shouts John as we run. “We almost left you here!” 

Kendall Johnson writes:

I am a former trauma specialist, having spent time on scene in multiple catastrophic incidents as a consultant.In fact, I visited the UK some years ago at the request of Elizabeth Capewell of the Centre for Crisis Management and Education in Newbury, Berkshire. I've written a number of professional books on crisis and trauma, the most notable being Trauma in the Lives of Children, Hunter House Publishers. Lately I've been writing poetry, fiction, and Creative Non Fiction. In fact, I managed to co-author a poetry book with John Brantingham titled A Sublime and Tragic Dance about

Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project.