Chapter 13
Emily Beale was still aloft in her Firehawk when he called, which Evan took to be a bad sign. The helos usually bedded down from sunset to sunrise. Night flying took special skills, which MHA’s senior pilot definitely possessed, and also earned special bonuses. The U.S. Forest Service Incident Commander had to authorize the budget for night flights and they didn’t do that very often.
A little quick wrangling and he had Emily on her way to pick them up after she was done moving Akbar’s team down the valley. Krista was hustling about, getting the other smokies to gather their gear while Evan ran a chainsaw and cleared a helispot.
Starting from Krista’s small dance floor, he circled out fifty feet in all directions and cut down any remaining trees or stumps that stuck up more th
