“Run!” Kevin shouted. Firefighters sprinted toward the ATVs parked twenty yards past the newly blazing hot spot, while the lieutenant held back, urging his crewmembers before him. About the time the first fellow made it to the trucks, a massive, crackling trunk, bathed in searing flames, plummeted to the forest floor not three feet in front of Flash. She skidded to an abrupt halt, throwing up her arms to shield her face. Shane, Dillon, Red, and two others stumbled to a stop before racing into the danger.
“This way!” called Garcia. He motioned for them to move east, to flank the new fire and still make it to their vehicles. Flash, with long, powerful legs driving her, crashed through underbrush, dodged trees, bounded over fallen branches, and outpaced the others, blood pumping like water blasting through a hose. But she couldn’t outrun the spread of the flames. Slowing, she stopped and leaned her hands on her knees, panting for air. Coughing assailed her as the smoke from both sides whirled in the strong wind.
“Why’d you stop?” Dillon’s voice was frantic as he gaped at her in disbelief.
“She’s right,” admitted the lieutenant. “If she can’t outrun this, none of us can. The trucks have to leave before they’re trapped, and, even if the guys leave us one vehicle, the fire will get to it before we do. We’ll head west, back down the fire line we cut.”
Leaving the forest edge, the crew tromped over the tail end of their debris heap and into the cleared dirt path. Walls of leaping, spitting flames climbed to their left, and the burning monster roared with lethal fury across the streamto the right, boxing them in. Shane and Red started coughing, slowing their forward movement.
“We need our oxygen masks and tanks,” Dillon said before bursting into a hacking fit.
“We’ll have to go old school,” Flash suggested. Pulling a cloth from her pocket, she instructed, “Everyone, take out your bandanas and soak them with water ‘til they’re dripping. Then tie them around your face like a bandit.”
She scurried to the bare creek bank with a nervous eye on the blazing curtain across the way. Waves of scorching heat blew at them from the north, motivating Flash and the crew to hurry.
“Why don’t we just get in the stream?” Shane asked. “It should protect us until that water drop gets here.”
“It’s not deep enough,” Kevin explained, “and it’s likely to boil. No. Our best option is to use these kerchiefs like Flash suggested and move as fast as possible west along the fire line.”
Flash sucked in a breath through the wet rag, and her throat and lungs felt immediate, if temporary, relief. With the ominous blaze gobbling up timber like a Christmas dinner, they needed to make haste. Thirteen firefighters had made it to the trucks; the seven who didn’t raced through the strip they’d cleared.
“How long ‘til the plane gets here?” panted Red. He kept a good pace behind Kevin and Flash, who could barely hear him over the thunderous noise.
“Not sure,” their leader threw back. He slowed to look over his shoulder, and Flash mirrored his movements. The others were still coming, even if they couldn’t keep up. “Keep running!” he yelled.
A booming crack rang out over the drone of wildfire as a gigantic sugar pine exploded. Flash’s eyes widened and her pulse raced as she watched over two hundred feet of flaming trunk fall across the stream and their fire line, crashing into thick brush to their left. When the others came to a screeching halt, Flash spun toward them with a gaping expression.
“What do we do now?” cried Dillon. He threw his hands to his helmet, bent over as if he’d been punched in the gut.
“We can try heading east, back the way we came, and look for a path through the forest,” Red suggested. The horror on his face appeared as genuine as that on Dillon’s.
“You mean back toward the giant flames?” Shane questioned.
Kevin whirled around, assessing the rapid spread of the fiery beast, distress, confusion, and the burden of leadership weighing on his shoulders.
Flash pulled her soaked cloth down and shouted, “We can run through it if we hurry. Come on!”
“You’re crazy!” Dillon’s youthful face appeared red with first-degree burns from the heat radiating around them and the blistering gale whooshing through the conflagration.
“No,” Flash insisted, her heart galloping in her chest. “I’ve done it before. If you runreallyfast, jump the narrow end of the tree, you can blast right through the flames to safety on the other side.”
“How do you know the fire doesn’t keep going?” Red asked urgently.
“It would be suicide,” Shane moaned. Her head whipped from side to side in near panic at the inferno surrounding them.
“Because we cleared it,” Kevin clipped brightly. “There’s nothing to burn, just dirt. Flash, you’ve done this, run through an eight-foot wall of flames?”
“Yes, sir, but we have to hurry before it gets worse, and you have to whiz through like a bat out of hell,” she warned. “No getting scared, no second thoughts. Pull your bandanas up and your hats down as far as you can, and run, fast as you can. Then, at the last minute, jump for it. When your boots hit the ground, run some more. If you trip, then roll. It won’t be more than a few feet wide—I promise—and I’ll go first. Garcia, don’t let anyone chicken out.”
“You heard her, crew,” Kevin confirmed, backing up Flash’s plan. “BBQ chicken isnoton the menu tonight. Line up behind Flash, secure your protective gear, and let’s do this!”
With a nod to Kevin, Flash tugged up her wet scarf, secured her safety glasses and hard hat, and broke into a sprinter’s launch, her boots digging into the fresh earth. Trusting her instincts, she leaped through the searing flames the way she used to pass her finger through a flame. One foot struck soil, then the next, withmomentum carrying her forward about ten yards before she could stop. Sure enough, the newly carved-out road ahead remained clear of fire—for now.
Turning around, she waited for someone to follow. Five seconds passed … ten … fifteen. “Come on, people!” she bellowed in frustration. Then a figure burst through the blaze—Red. Next landed Shane, then Dillon.
“Scotty’s freakin’ out,” Dillon reported in a worried tone, before an amazed grin lit his face. “Hey, Houston, it worked!”
Shane and Red hugged each other as an older, stocky Texas volunteer stumbled over the flaring treetop. His knee hit the ground, and he rolled several times before stopping to push himself up. Pulling down his bandana, he declared, “I’m alive!” A pleased expression of relief washed over his grubby, tan features.
