The rest of the crew—the diggers—would work in a line, hacking away at the forest floor, creating a three-foot trench—a fire break down the middle of the saw line. The Alpine crew had been split into two groups of ten—sawyers, swampers, and diggers, and then some on lookout, one checking the weather, and the others down the way igniting a back burn. Even separated, they worked together seamlessly, half the time not saying a word. Jubal was communicating with the superintendent, and then barking those orders at the hotshots while elbow-deep in the dirt himself. They all worked for hours to create what they called fuel breaks, cutting and burning away any vegetation, covering miles bent over digging, sawing, all in an effort to starve the flames to death.

A distant thud thud thud drew closer, and soon a helicopter was zooming overhead. Just beyond a pillar of smoke, the helo released its load, and a purplish-red powder rained down.

“That’s red slurry—a fire retardant,” Tyler explained.

“It stops the fire?”

“Slows it down. Buys us more time to dig.”

I swallowed, and Tyler touched my cheek with his gloved hand. “We’re okay.”

I nodded quickly, terrified and excited at the same time.

The hotshots barely took a second to notice the dump of slurry, and then continued hacking at the ground. I watched in awe, exhausted from just the hike to the fire site and the cold.

Tyler breathed out a laugh, and I turned to see him staring at me the way I looked at the fire. He didn’t look away; instead, one side of his mouth curled up. Even through the sweat and ash, his dimple appeared. In that moment, Tyler Maddox and his fires filled a hole in my soul I hadn’t known existed.

They worked past dark, the fire reduced to a galaxy of glowing orange embers along the hillside.

“All right,” Chief said to Jubal over the radio. “Time to call in the ground crew.”

“What does that mean?” I asked Tyler.

He smiled. “The ground crew will mop up after us. They’ll pull together piles in the black and burn them out until the fire is cold. We’re done unless embers jump the fire line.”

The hotshots were already packing it in, making the long haul back to the vehicles. I walked with my camera in hand, making it easier to document the return hike of exhausted, ash-covered men trudging through the forest without a single person to thank them for saving countless miles of trees and homes. The public would never know the reality of what had happened here, or how hard the hotshots had worked to make sure no one would. The only evidence was the scorched earth we’d left behind.