If only he had his fire shelter with him.
But he had his fireproof jacket, and maybe that would be enough. As the flames leaped and danced only a few feet away, he lowered Evie to the ground. He took off his jacket and nudged her into a fetal position, then covered her with his own body. He curled tight around her, like a football he’d just intercepted. He made his own body as small as possible and pulled his jacket over both of them. He tried to pin it to the ground the way he would with his aluminum shelter, but it wasn’t quite big enough.
He took shallow breaths of the heated air. If they were in the heart of a wildfire with nothing but a jacket for protection, they’d be doomed. But this fire was just getting started, and they were smack in the middle of the road. There was limited fu
