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The smokies and hotshots hit the western line of the fire’s northern head at sunrise. To keep out of sight from the terrorist camp, the Firehawk and the 212s delivered all the crews by helitack rather than parachute. They began cutting off the fire’s angle of attack foot-by-foot.
As soon as possible, Carly began bleeding teams off the south and west of the main fire. From her perch in the Firehawk, she directed whole sections of the attack. She set them to clearing a firebreak along a ridgeline two miles north of the camp. It was probably the line she’d have chosen anyway, far enough ahead of the fire to give the ground teams time to cut it deep and paint it wide with retardant.
Henderson kept all air traffic to the north of the ridge, in case any other trigger-happy maniacs got big
