Wildfire on the Skagit (excerpt)
“Guard your reserves!” The spotter shouted after he’d clambered from the cockpit, over all of the smokejumpers, and finally reached the back door of the roaring DC-3 jump plane.
Krista Thorson slapped her hand over her reserve parachute to make sure it didn’t accidentally deploy when he popped open the door. A glance down the line assured her that all twelve smokejumpers in the flight were awake and doing the same.
A DC-3’s cabin wasn’t that cramped, until you piled wildland firefighting gear secure behind heavy cargo nets down one side, and a dozen fully geared up smokejumpers prone like beached whales down the other. They’d been trying to finish their night’s sleep after the dawn call-to-fire, but the wildfire was so close to base that a catnap was all
