Fuck.
There had to be a way out of this.
Hawke heard the tone for the Team go out over his radio. He turned to face the fire, its roar like the engines of a dozen jet fighters.
Silver’s voice cut in. “Here it comes.”
“Get out of there, Silver!”
“Already on my way back.”
“This is it, folks.” Timing was everything. “Silver, confirm when you’re out.”
Seconds ticked by.
Silver’s voice came over the radio. “In the black!”
Hawke gave the command. “Light it up!”
He watched as his men ran forward, lighting everything they could on fire before retreating into the black and walking back to the road with their tools and drip torches to watch the spectacle unfold.
Hawke stood his ground. “Come and get it, bitch.”
The flames from the backburn spread, rose up, dark smoke billowing skyward. But instead of being caught by the wind and running eastward into the black, the flames of the backburn were sucked toward the hundred-foot-tall wall of the main fire, pulled in by the bigger fire’s greed for oxygen, burning away all the fuel in the fire’s path as they went.
Hawke watched, barely able to breathe as the two walls of flame drew closer together, one like a tidal wave of orange, the other smaller. The heat was almost unbearable, forcing him back. He heard the whirring sound of a camera.
Ramirez.
The guy was a friend of Rossiter’s, so Hawke tried not to be irritated.
“You should evacuate back to the road,” he called out.
Ramirez nodded, turned, and jogged back to where Hawke’s crew stood.
He heard a shout, and then a call came in over the radio.
“Scarlet Command, the fire has fingered off to the south! It’s making a run up the south side of that drainage toward Ski Scarlet.”
Goddamn it!
That’sexactlywhat Hawke hadn’t wanted to hear.
It was getting away from them again. It was making an end-run around the backburn. It could jump back across at any time, ignite the forest and the homes behind them, making it impossible for them to get back to town.
If only that fucking Skycrane or the SEATs were here. A few thousand gallons of water in the right place atthisprecisemoment would have been their game-changer.
Hawke didn’t hesitate. “Everyone fall back to Ski Scarlet!”
“You got it.”
But Hawke barely heard the reply, the fire moving toward him with the force of a hurricane. It sucked the backburn into itself, the two walls of flame merging. Then the main head of the fire sputtered, shrank, went out.
It was like someone had flicked a switch, the silence deafening, dark smoke hanging like a curtain in the air, twisting in the wind.
Cheers.
Jenny Miller’s voice came over his radio. “It jumped the river to the north! There’s a finger headed straight east toward town.”