“Copy that.” Jesse motioned for his fellow patrollers to move away.
That’s when he saw it—a helo spinning out of control.
It looked like it was heading into the fire.
“Son of a bitch.” He wished he had his Team radio because he would know what the hell was going on and who was in that aircraft. Instead, he heard only radio traffic from the ski resort.
He called his boss. “Forty-two to Dispatch. I just saw a helicopter go down. It looked like it had lost its tail rotor. I think it crashed into the fire.”
“A drone hit an observation helicopter. I heard the mayday. I think your buddy Eric Hawke was onboard.”
The news hit Jesse like a blast wave, drove the air from his lungs.
God, no!
Hawke had been a mentor to him when he’d tried out for the Team. He’d helped him improve as a climber. He’d helped him land his ski patrol job.
He was one of the best men Jesse knew.
Matt’s voice sounded in Jesse’s earpiece again. “I’m sorry.”
Jesse jogged to the top of the ridge again, looked toward the north, but smoke obscured his view. “Someone needs to get the hell out there with a rescue helo—now!”
“How long would it take a chopper to get airborne and reach them? If they landed in the fire, they’re dead already.”
Helplessness turned Jesse’s dread and fear to rage. “For fuck’s sake, we can’t just stand here and do nothing while they burn alive!”
“If you’ve got a plan, tell me, and I’ll call it in to Scarlet Command. If not, focus on keeping yourself and your fellow patrollers safe. Now, get the hell off that ridge!”
The fire was here.
The roar like a dozen fighter jets. Fist-sized embers. Black, choking smoke.
Son of a bitch!
Hawke!
Jesse ran down the slope, his fellow patrollers urging him on. He threw himself to the ground and glanced back as a hundred-foot wave of flame crested over the ridgetop, turning the world around him orange. Water from the fan guns became steam, and for a moment it seemed his plan wasn’t going to work.
Then the length of the flames shrank. Fifty feet. Twenty. Ten.
The fire sputtered, hissed, went out.
Cheers.
“We’ve got a couple of spot fires in the glades,” said a voice in Jesse’s earpiece.
Crews scrambled to put those out, cutting down burning trees with chain saws, beating out the flames. But Jesse ran to his UTV and headed down the slope. He ditched the vehicle outside the ski patrol office and ran inside, where Matt sat listening to county’s tactical frequency.
“… and we are deploying shelters!” Hawke shouted into his radio, his voice almost drowned out by the roar of the fire.
Jesus!
They had survived the crash, but they were entrapped.
Son of a bitch.
Sometimes the shelters saved lives, but they didn’t guarantee survival by any means. Jesse had heard stories—some from survivors, some from people who’d had the terrible job of bagging and tagging the bodies of firefighters who’d died in their shelters of burns or asphyxiation from hot gases and smoke.