19
Day Two of the fire had been brutal, there was no other way Mickey could think to describe it.
Robin had pulled all four helos to the head of the fire to try and protect the ground crews, which meant flying in and out of narrow holes in the smoke through rough, superheated air. And not hitting each other.
For perhaps the first time on a fire, Mickey knew he couldn’t have managed the flying alone. He did the firefighting, but when Tim shoved at the controls, Mickey let him have his way, because Tim was monitoring the air traffic. With no ICA up in a control plane and the North Koreans hovering so near, it was barely controlled mayhem.
He had no idea how Vern was coping because Denise had been grounded so that she could service the helicopters as they rotated out of the fire for refue
