Page 71 of Wild Fires

“Sounds like a good job for me. I'd head over to assist, but you know how your mother worries, and I suppose we may need to put Ginny and Atticus up for the night as well.”

Hanging up with him, I took a deep breath, then pushed down the fears threatening to surface. I was Ryan Davenport, Mayor of Ravenden. It was time to go to work.

Gracie

Chapter 20

Four of us set out in one direction while the others divided and tackled other areas. Dan, Rodney, Big Dick, and I were assigned to one team. We'd drawn the short straws to go in as deep as possible, report back on location and then a team would be set up to begin sending water and sand in to help stall the fire from the inside.

Others were working on setting up barriers at the heel and flanks while another unit was working on the head to try to slow any forward progress.

We started out at a fast clip, jogging into the fire in full gear.

Full gear deterred any of us from catching fire. It did not help with the heat. If anything, it made us even hotter.

“We're getting deep in here,” Big Dick said.

We all had wireless communication devices inside our helmets to allow us to talk to one another while fighting a fire.

“Have you ever seen one this big before?” I asked in awe.

“Nope.”

“Never.”

“Not me,” they all agreed.

For the most part, Ravenden didn't get a lot of fire action. The last week or so had been rare and nerve-racking, but also exciting.

These fires weren’t something I'd wish on anyone, but I wasn't disappointed to have a little action either, until now.

This was going to devastate our area.

Just thinking of the displaced wildlife and all the birds that were going to die or be forced to relocate made me want to cry. I couldn't even let myself think about that right now.

Instead, Ryan’s face crossed my mind.

Not now, I tried to warn my raven.

I needed to concentrate and focus. Thinking of him was definitely not going to help with that.

Gia had psyched me up to go after him, but the call had come in before I could act on that. Now it was going to have to wait, and I had no idea how long this one would take. Could be days or even weeks.

At a certain point, a fire became such a natural disaster that we literally had to turn it over to Mother Nature and pray for the best. I really hoped that wasn't going to be the case here.

It was still early enough that we had options. Setting up fire breaks and barriers was a start. Teams were doing that on the perimeter.

“Everyone stop and check your oxygen tanks before we proceed,” Dan advised.

We all stopped and did as we were told. Mine was almost entirely full. Big Dick’s only had sixty percent. The others were somewhere in between.

“We're all good,” I confirmed.

“Okay, let's keep going then,” Dan ordered.

We walked for a bit in silence, but it didn't last long.

Big Dick finally broke the silence. “Gracie Lou, I feel like we are walking in your element. It's going to make me sing.”

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