The Complete Hotshots Read online

  The Complete Hotshots

  a wildfire romance short story collection

  M. L. Buchman

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  Contents

  Introduction

  Fire Light Fire Bright

  Firelights of Christmas

  Fire Light Cabin Bright

  Road to the Fire’s Heart

  A Hotshot Christmas

  Last Words

  Wildfire at Dawn (excerpt)

  About the Author

  Also by M. L. Buchman

  Introduction

  The Firehawks Hotshots aren’t directly tied to the Firehawks of my fictional Mount Hood Aviation. And yet they were born from those stories.

  There are many different elements to a wildland firefight:

  Lookouts

  Spotter aircraft (which have replaced most lookouts and are now in turn being replaced by satellites detecting atypical heat blooms)

  Local fire departments (often with wildfire engines)

  Hotshots who hike into the firefight

  Smokies who parachute in

  Helitack (firefighters delivered by helicopter)

  Air tankers (which include helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft)

  Then, especially on the big fires, there are whole layers of camps, support, and command-and-control teams. A really big fire may mobilize more people than lived in the town I grew up in (1,200). The hotshots are only the tiniest slice of the battle and my stories are but a tiny slice of that team’s view.

  In writing about the MHA Firehawks, I slowly learned about these other types of teams and wanted to learn more. What better excuse than to write a series of romance stories about them? And that’s how the Firehawks Hotshots came into being.

  They are technically an IHC—Interagency Hotshot Crew—who can be called up by the Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, and others, hence the Interagency part of their name. They are typically formed by one of the agencies, but may also be formed by local fire departments. These teams assemble every spring and mostly disband every winter after the fire season is over. Traveling all over the western US in the “Box” as their truck is called, they fight fires wherever they occur, typically May to October.

  Sixteen hour days, sleeping wild, and eating camp food is the norm. Working forty-eight hours or more straight is not the exception when the fires are raging.

  Some areas have such horrible fire seasons that those teams rarely travel out of state: California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Others have a very short but intense season, in say Arizona or New Mexico, then travel farther afield. They are often on the road for months.

  I set my team in the Washington Cascade Mountains for several reasons: there is no real-life team based there, I love the area, and I saw the results of a horrible fire that swept through the region years ago.

  But it really came from Candace. She was so excited to form her own team, that I had to write her story.

  Fire Light Fire Bright

  Candace Cantrell fights forest fires as a lead member of a hotshot crew. When she lands the opportunity to build a brand new crew of her own, she ends up with more than she bargained for.

  Former Navy SEAL Luke Rawlings struggles with a past he can’t leave behind. A past that blinds him to the future, until the moment he tries out for a new hotshot crew.

  Most people wish upon a star. Hotshot crews do it differently:

  “Fire Light Fire Bright…”

  Introduction

  IHC, Interagency Hotshot Crews, are one of the backbones of wildland firefighting. Yet they were largely unknown to the general public prior to the disaster at the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in which nineteen members of the twenty-person Granite Mountain Hotshots crew were killed in a single burnover. Their position was overrun and, despite deploying fire shelters, the manzanita burned so hot that it melted the foil shelters (well past 1,500 degrees—three times the heat that a home oven can produce and on a multi-acre scale). I can highly recommend the movie Only the Brave, though it was made long after these stories were written.

  These teams drive as close to fires as possible and then hike in. Often with minimal support, they are the ground team that directly confronts the blaze. A smokejumper is only called on the worst fires or when there is no other way to reach the fire quickly from the ground. A local fire department isn’t equipped or trained to handle a large wildfire—between local fire and the elite smokejumpers is the gap that IHCs walk into.

  Hotshots cut a brush-free line with chainsaws and specialized axes called Pulaskis (axe on one side, adze on the other—essentially a sharpened hoe). They shovel dirt over flames to put out the fire and they dig up hotspots so they can drown them with portable pumps using inch-and-a-half hoses before the embers flare up and reignite a tinder-dry forest. They even use fire in controlled backfires to rob the main fire of its fuel—truly fighting fire with fire.

  When Candace insisted that she wanted to start her own IHC, who was I to argue.

  I found Luke easily enough. After researching so many active military scenarios for my other series, it was time to start telling the stories of those whose service hadn’t ended by choice. The first wounded warrior I wrote was Lois Lang in NSDQ (Night Stalkers Don’t Quit). She had lost her foot, whereas Luke had lost something deep inside.

  I love the contrast of a woman so sure of herself, helping a man who once was. They would remain the heart of the team for the rest of the short story series, something I always enjoy.

  1

  “Hi, I’m Candace Cantrell. First Rule: anyone who calls me Candy, who isn’t my dad,” she hooked a thumb at Fire Chief Carl Cantrell standing at-ease beside her, “is gonna get my boot up their ass. We clear on that?”

  A rolling mumble of “Yes, ma’am.” “Clear.” and “Got it, Candace.” rippled back to her from the recruits. Some answered almost as softly as the breeze working its way up through the tall pines. Others trumpeting it out as if to get her notice. A few offered simple nods.

  She surveyed the line of recruits slowly. Way too early to make any judgments, but it was tempting. Day One, Minute One, and she could already guess five of the forty applicants weren’t going to make it into the twenty slots she had open.

  The one thing they all, including her dad, needed to see right up front was their team leader’s complete confidence. Candace had been fighting wildfires for the U.S. Forest Service hotshot teams for a decade. She’d worked her way up to foreman twice, and had been gunning for a shot at superintendent of a whole twenty-person crew when her dad had called.

  “We’re got permission to form up an IHC in the heart of the Okanagan-Wenatchee National Forest,” he never was long on greetings over the phone.

  Her mouth had watered. A brand new Interagency Hotshot Crew didn’t happen all that often.

  “I talked to the other captains and we want you to form it up.”

  Now her throat had gone dry and she had to fight to not let it squeak.

  “Me?”

  “You aren’t gonna let me down now, Candy Girl?”

  “You shittin’ me?” Not a chance.

  Then he’d hit her with that big belly laugh of his.

  “Knew you’d like the idea.”

  And simple as that, she’d been out of the San Juan IHC at the end of the Colorado fire season and back home in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. She’d grown up in the resort town of Leavenworth—two thousand people and a ka-jillion tourists. The cit
y fathers had transformed the failing timber town into a Bavarian wonderland back in the sixties. But that didn’t stop the millions of acres of the National Forest and the rugged sagebrush-steppe ecosystem further east in central Washington from torching off every summer.

  The very first thing she’d done, before she’d even left the San Juan IHC, was to call in a pair of ringers as her two foremen. Jess was short, feisty, and could walk up forested mountains all day with heavy gear without slowing down a bit. Patsy was tall, quiet, and tough. Candace had them stand in with the crews for the first days because she wanted their eyes out there as well.

  “Second, see that road?” she asked the recruits and pointed to the foot of National Forest Road 6500. She’d had their first meet-up be here rather than at the fire hall in town. A gaggle of vehicles were pulled off the dirt of Little Wenatchee River Road. Beater pickups dominated, but there were a couple of hammered Civics, a pair of muscle cars, and a gorgeous Harley Davidson that she considered stealing it was so sweet.

  The recruits all looked over their shoulders at the one lane of dirt.

  “We’re going for a stroll up that road. We leave in sixty seconds.”

  Like a herd of sheep, they all swung their heads to look at her.

  “Fifty-five seconds, and this ain’t gonna be a Sunday stroll.”

  You could tell the number of seasons they’d fought fire just by their reactions.

  Five or more? They already wore their boots. Daypacks with water and energy bars were kept on their shoulders during her intro. And despite it being Day One of the ten-day shakedown, all had some tools: fold-up shovel and a heavy knife strapped to their leg at a minimum. Only she, Jess, and Patsy had Pulaski wildland fire axes tied to their gear, but all the veterans knew the drill.

  Three to four seasons? Groans and eyerolls. Packs were on the ground beside them. No tools, but they knew what was coming now that she’d told them—ten kilometers, at least, and not one meter of it flat.

  One to two seasons? Had the right boots on, but no packs. They were racing back to their vehicles to see what equipment they could assemble.

  Rookies? Tennis shoes, ball caps, no gear, blank stares.

  “Forty-five seconds, rooks. Boots and water. If you’re not on the trail in fifty seconds, you’re off the crew.” That got their asses moving.

  There was one man on the whole crew she couldn’t pigeonhole, the big guy who’d climbed off the Harley. His pack and the fold-up shovel strapped to it were so new they sparkled. But his boots and the massive hunting knife on his thigh both showed very heavy use.

  A glance at her Dad’s assessing gaze confirmed it. Something was odd about the Harley man and his easy grin. Not rugged handsome, but still very nice to look at. Powerful shoulders, slim waist. Not an athlete’s build, but rather someone who really used his body. His worn jeans revealed that he already had the powerful legs that every hotshot would develop from endless miles of chasing fire over these mountains and steppes for the next six months. It was like he was a Hollywood movie: some parts of him were so very right, but a lot of the details were dead wrong.

  2

  Luke Rawlings looked at the team superintendent. Couldn’t help himself, ‘cause damn she was a treat to look at. Her white-blond hair was short and sassy, her body was seriously fit, but curved like a sweet-Candy dream girl. Her no-nonsense attitude just cracked him up; he could hear that natural state of command that you only learned the hard way, by doing it. Not something he’d ever expected to find in a hot civilian babe.

  When he’d mustered out, SEAL Lieutenant Commander Altman had suggested he try firefighting. Altman was a smart dude, so Luke had followed his suggestion. He’d kicked around with a big city fire department doing ride-alongs for a while. Chicago Fire were all super guys and they kept trying to sign him aboard, but tramping pavement and cement, doing fire inspections for date tags on commercial fire extinguishers…he’d rather be back in the African jungle. If his nerves would let him, which he so wasn’t going to think about now.

  He still wasn’t sure how he’d heard about the hotshot crews, but walking into a wildfire—he just liked the way it sounded.

  And looking at “Not Candy” Cantrell, he was damn glad he’d followed his whim and ridden his Harley west. “Not Candy.” What did that make her? Cake, or main course?

  She moved to the head of the dirt forest road where it left the pavement. The old hands had already moved onto the track, but they waited once there. So, hotshot teams moved as a unit. Good. That was familiar.

  He dropped into line to watch. Candace had already picked out at least two of her team, he could see the surreptitious communication between the three of them; all three with worn fireaxes, despite it being just a training walk.

  Number One tool of their trade. Got it.

  So, her recruit assessment was underway from the inside as well. The two insiders were watching the rookies, but the superintendent also had her eye tracking him.

  Didn’t require his kind of training to catch the glance between father and daughter as they assessed him. Let them wonder. There were some things he’d rather not talk about. He was just gonna play Mr. Average Joe Firefighter Hopeful and see how it rolled.

  3

  Day Five and Candace was halfway through the selection process. She’d been right on four out of the five who’d been gone on Day One; one had made it to Day Two. She’d lost five more since then. She was down from forty to thirty on her way to the final twenty to be accepted into the crew.

  She knew crew bosses who did it solely with physical testing: massive hikes, hard calisthenics, and so on. She preferred to incorporate as much training as possible. Here’s what the real world will be like, kids. You up for it?

  Yesterday she had them clearing a line. When a fire was working its way through the forest duff and detritus, it was up to a hotshot team to scrape and clear a wide swath down to mineral soil, and to do it in lines often a mile or more long. Upslope and down.

  Hotshots might be the elite ground crew, barely a step down from the smokejumpers, but they spent a lot of time grubbing dirt lines. Sixteen hours she’d kept them at it, sunup to well past sundown, finishing by headlamp, then sacking out right where they were. On a big fire, they’d be going twenty-four to thirty-six hours at a time and she wanted to give them a taste of that. They all wore field packs now and either a Pulaski axe or a McLeod rake. Unlike most field duty during the season, her dad’s townie crew did roll in with a wildfire engine loaded up for each meal; so at least they ate well.

  Today, she pulled Jess and Patsy out of the crowd and introduced them around the deep woods camp as her two foremen. She’d left them in the team long enough that their exceptional skills and experience had become standout obvious, so there were no hard feelings about having spies in their midst. At least none that she could spot.

  Luke Rawlings had offered her one of his enigmatic smiles that seemed to say, About time. As if he’d known about them since the first day.

  She was half tempted to boot the man, just because the puzzle of him was so damned distracting. Candace needed the team to stay focused and this man was a complete aberration. But the part of her that he was sidetracking had nothing to do with forest fires, so she did her best to ignore that and left him in place.

  He clearly had no experience with wildfire or hotshot techniques, but show him something once and he had it solid. Not just what to do, but like he’d always had it. Luke had clearly never run a chainsaw, didn’t even know how to start one. Yet after a single day that the team had spent clearing some new land for a farmer downslope near the town of Monitor, he moved like a three-year sawyer.

  And he never spoke much. Strong and silent type. “Just takin’ care of business, ma’am” attitude. When he did speak, his voice had a soft southern to it, Tennessee or Kentucky—that he clearly knew was a total charmer. Of the six women among the recruits, four had already taken a run at him. As far as Candace could tell, not a one of them had g
otten past that polite shield.

  What are you hiding, Rawlings?

  He wasn’t saying. Well, today should separate out more of the recruits. Question was, did she want him separated out or not?

  She moved them downslope from where they’d camped—an uncomfortable site on the slopes of Dragontail Peak. Anyone who thought fires didn’t burn on this kind of terrain, so hotshots never walked it, would be disabused of that notion over the fast-approaching fire season.

  When they reached a small clearing, her Dad had already arrived with a wildfire engine. These trucks were wide, heavy, and smaller than the standard in-town engines. More the size of a utility service truck, they could cross surprisingly rough terrain with a great deal of gear and five hundred gallons of water.

  Once they were gathered, Candace pulled out a fire shelter pouch and held it up for all to see.

  “This is a five-hundred dollar device of last resort. You will always have one on your hip and you will protect it more carefully than your own face. If everything else goes wrong and you find yourself in a burnover situation, this foil shelter is your only chance of survival.”

  That sobered a number of their faces.

  “Today, we’ll practice with plastic shelters worth about ten dollars. I don’t want to see even the smallest tear or nick in these, because if it’s a real fire, fifteen hundred degree flame will find its way right through that gap and toast your ass. I can’t begin to tell you how much paperwork that will cause me.”