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The Yellowstone Fire was four thousand acres of flame marching across territory that hadn’t burned in about a decade. It had plenty of fuel to keep it going. Along with high winds and dry conditions, that meant that nothing stood in the way of the entire Northwest going up in flames—aside from the legions of firefighters who had flown in from across the country to help out. Four hundred firefighters were on the scene. A major air effort was also underway, with C-130 air tankers deployed to drop slurry along the fire lines.
Josh and the rest of the Jupiter Point Hotshots slept at the Incident Command Center at night—they pitched tents on the grounds of a nearby high school—and drove to the fire lines every morning. There, they attacked the dry vegetation with Pulaskis and chainsaws, ta
