Chapter 6
Red pines caught and went up like torches. A hot and dry wind pushed the fire steadily south and west. The blaze leapt dirt
roads, creeks, highways. A thunderhead of black smoke, miles wide, mounted in the skies, above the helicopters dumping foam
and water on the flames. As the heat climbed, redwoods began to explode like sticks of dynamite, the sap in them boiling and
causing the wood to rupture. That night, the sky was filled with a billion whirling sparks, an alien constellation playing
out against a long, smoky darkness. The fire would burn all summer and into September, consuming over six hundred square miles
of farm and forest, hill and dale, incinerating thousands of animals and any number of unlucky Californians who failed to
evacuate quickly enough.
The cause of the fire was never determined.