Wildfire
Mary Pauline Lowry, 2014
288 pp.

Book Review by Molly Lundquist
December, 2014
For me, the draw to this novel was that the author herself had once been a "hotshot," the elite branch of forestfire fighters. These are tough Navy SEAL types, often helicoptered in, who dig ditches at the edge of an oncoming blaze. It's extreme and dangerous work.

What would attract a woman to the hotshots? It's unclear what enticed our author, but her fictional stand-in Julie explains her own reasons: "After my parents died, I started to set things on fire." When her pyromania gets snuffed out by a stern grandmother, she turns to bulimia. So fighting wildfires seems a perfect antidote to Julie's self-destructive urges.

In one particularly fine passage, Julie explains why others, typically men, join the hotshots:

Flame 'n Gos all loved the dirt and the thin air and the unburned forests and sleeping under the stars.... They all loved the fire, the way it burned hot and high...reminding us how precious life is...and they held each other's backs when the shit went down the fire line.

The story itself involves Julie's acceptance into the ranks of her staunchly macho companions; she, of course, must prove herself. And, of course, there's one tough holdout who makes her life miserable. Finally, of course, throw in a love interest adding fuel to the fire.

The plot is really secondary in interest to the actual work of fire fighting; this is where the author truly shines. We learn what it's like to dig miles of ditches, how fires rage faster uphill than down, and how a single mistake, by even the most skillful pro, can lead to horrific consequences.

Wildfire is particularly topical given the past several years of blazes in the West and West Coast, along with the devastating loss of life—the 19 firefighters who died in Arizona in 2013. This book gives an insider's view of those men and women who put their lives, literally, in the line of fire.

See our Reading Guide for Wildfire