6
The fire fought back for five more days. They would block it to the north, and the wind would turn south. They’d airlift a team of shattered smokejumpers back to camp, only to have to roust them four hours later because of fire breaching the hard-won fire line of cut and backburn.
Robin had flown hard fires, but this was getting ridiculous. She started juggling crews not based on how she thought their skills might be best applied, but rather by whose eyes were least bloodshot with fatigue. It was a good thing that there wasn’t a mirror anywhere on camp—she wasn’t willing to see how she herself was faring.
Sometimes she’d crash in her own tent that she had eventually found. Not because she didn’t want to sleep with Mickey, but because it was fifty steps closer to where she parked Fireh
