Page 72 of Wild Fires

“Not again,” Dan complained.

“I mean it,” Big Dick warned. “I'll do it.”

“You know he will,” Rodney said with a chuckle.

“No,” I started to protest, but it was too late.

“She's just a girl and she's on fire,” he began as he belted out the lyrics to Girl on Fire by Alicia Keyes. And then he started to dance. When he got to the chorus, he stopped and turned full diva. “She's walking on fire.”

“I think we all are,” Dan reminded him.

I laughed. “You're both idiots.”

“This girl is on fire.”

“Enough already. If we don’t get moving, we're all going to be on fire,” I reminded them.

Switching gears, he started singing another song, this time by Fall Out Boy. “Hey young blood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out? I'm going to change you like a remix. Then I'll raise you like a phoenix.”

“Hey, that's not even funny,” Rodney complained. “Not all of us can be raised like a phoenix, right Gracie Lou?”

I groaned, not even bothering to respond.

“Are you fools going to just hang out and goof off with your little karaoke night or are you actually going to work?” Clarence asked over the radio.

“Party's over guys. Time to get serious here before someone gets hurt,” Dan said.

“Rodney, watch out, go to the left a bit,” I yelled over the roar of the fire.

“She's right, Rodney. Y'all need to settle down and refocus out here. Fun and games are over,” Dan said.

We were deep in the middle of it all, approaching the point of no return.

There is a point in a forest fire where we no longer have the option to shift and fly back out. That was about fifty yards back.

I'd never been in a fire this massive before. It was mesmerizing. We weren't even to the ignition point yet.

It was hot as Hades.

“I think we should turn back,” Big Dick said.

“Don't look at me. Chief put Dan in charge,” I reminded him.

I knew Clarence considered me too much of a risk for leadership. I pushed myself and those around me too hard at times. It had always bothered me that he thought that. I was a great firefighter, and I was capable of rational decision making. I also didn't mind taking risks when I thought they could be beneficial to forward progress.

A limb cracked near us and fell to the ground, spreading ash our way.

Four of us were on this unit and even I could admit that Dan had pushed us a little too far into the heat.

It was beautiful being surrounded by all the dancing flames but also intimidating, even for me.

Once in my rookie year I'd been caught in the middle of a controlled burn that got out of hand. It had spread quickly and without a barrier it could easily have spread into a full wildfire like this one if we hadn't gotten on site as fast as we had.

I’d rushed in ready to prove myself and my foot had gotten caught under a branch. I'd gone up in flames, but when I resurrected as my raven, it had been in the middle of the fire exactly where I'd perished. My bird caught on fire, and I'd died again. And then again and again.

On my fifth resurrection, I came to just in time to be doused with the water hose. I hadn't been happy about, but I was so grateful to be out of the loop of death that I didn't even complain about it.

I shivered despite the heat.