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Carly studied the progress as they flew toward the fire.
The ground crews had run through the night—again. The northern crews still hadn’t managed to close the gap. Every time they squeezed the fire’s flanks closer together, the fire shot out to the north, east, and west, squirting a half mile at a time in fantastic leaps that were both beautiful and horrifying.
The west and south crews had kicked serious ass. They’d been lucky enough to have played the fire right. Firebreaks across where the night’s land breezes tended to gather and drive the fire hard had held. Simple groundwork had sufficed where the winds didn’t rip flame from one pine to the next faster than a man could run.
Carly got the air tankers laying beautiful long strips of red retardant on the west and south side in su
