Chapter 19
Match to a Flame
Blaze
I had no idea working a desk could be so thrilling. Not quite like fighting the fire in person but quickly moving up the rungs of excitement.
Every day, I’d hear from the firewatchers.
Sometimes, there would be minor sightings of smoke or reports of lightning strikes, but nothing major, despite this being the driest year on record and also the windiest that anyone remembered.
It was perfectly ripe for fire weather, and if one started at any spot this summer, in these conditions—it would be one for the books.
But fall, for all intents and purposes, was here. Kerry was bringing in pumpkin donuts with a fall-infused French press. Sometimes, she would bring muffins with a vat of maple-flavored coffee. Yesterday, another dispatcher lit a small pumpkin candle at the desk.
“If you don’t find a fire, it looks like you’re going to make one, huh?” I pointed to it, and she just shrugged. Her name was Melody, and she’d been working for the department for twenty-six years. It was safe to say she did what she wanted.
“My husband is allergic to fragrance. This is the only time I get to enjoy candles.” She gave me a stern look. “Do you want me to put it out because you’re afraid of me knocking it over?” I shook my head, putting my hands up in defeat.
“No, no. Do what you want, please,” I laughed. She never did crack a smile. I went back to monitoring the humidity, which was the lowest I’d ever seen it in the desert-like area that we lived in.
Northern Wyoming was dry as a bone most of the time, but this was one for the books. In all of my years monitoring conditions—which I started doing with my dad as soon as I was old enough to understand—this was the most extreme I’d seen.
This region got thirteen inches of rain on average, but this year, the gauges were dry.
Even the passing storms, charged by our extreme heat, didn’t produce enough rain to moisten the gauges.
It really was a miracle that the ground outside wasn’t blazing right now.
When the cooler temperatures of fall made their appearance, it would be welcomed by most in our community.
The emergency alert noise snapped me out of my monitoring.
“Weather alert for Maple Haven—Doppler radar is tracking a strong thunderstorm traveling east at 25 miles per hour. It’s bringing heavy rain, lightning, and golf-ball sized hail.”
“Did you hear that? Heavy rain!” I exclaimed to Melody, who shrugged it off.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Deep down, I knew she was right, as I looked out the window to the west.
*****
Thunder struck, and we knew the storm had arrived. It was so loud down here on the ground, my thoughts traveled to what Autumn was hearing in Tower Three. I pulled up one of the weather stations we had in her region. It was only about twenty miles away from here. A half hour drive at most.
The weather station was reporting high gusts and lightning. No moisture yet. No hail was hitting the sensor pad. Lord willing, we would get a little moisture to fight off any risk of fire. Just then, the wind gauge went down and stopped functioning altogether.
“Dispatch to Tower Three, do you copy?” My request went out on the radio waves.
Melody gave me a look that was somewhere in between annoyance and curiosity.
I didn’t even know why she was here— Stephanie used to work alone.
Maybe it was because I was new to the desk, but I wasn’t new to the industry.
No answer from Autumn, so I tried again.
“Dispatch to Tower Three, Autumn, are you there?” I could feel Melody’s eyes on me.
Kerry was also now standing at her desk off in the distance, but she looked like she was about to leave the building for the day.
“Tower Three to Dispatch, over,” Autumn answered my call. I let out the breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Tower Three, it appears the nearby weather station has gone down. Can you give me a weather report?”
“Oh, okay, sure,” I caught her off-guard, that much was clear.
Perhaps this was out of the norm, but it felt very much relevant to the stakes at hand.
“Well, it’s rather treacherous out there right now with lightning and—” A loud crack and boom took over the line.
The thunder was so loud over the radio that it sounded like cannons going off.
“Sorry, uh, yeah. It’s bad up here. Do you need me to go down there and investigate or—” I cut her off.
“No!” I was surprised by how protective I felt of this woman I didn’t know. “I mean, that won’t be necessary, Tower Three. Over.” Silence followed. I considered following up, but what would she say to that? ‘Okay’?
“Is everything alright, Blaze?” The woman’s voice held real concern. I felt Melody’s eyes on me as the firewatcher was asking dispatch if they were okay.
“Sorry to disturb you, Autumn. The nearest weather station to you has just gone down and...” I couldn’t believe my eyes when the weather station came back up and was functioning normally again. “And it’s back up. Again, I’m sorry for the drama.” A long pause filled the moment.
“Are you sure you’re not just looking for a reason to talk to me, Blaze?” My cheeks reddened as I readjusted in my seat. I could hear Melody’s eyes rolling but was thankful when she decided to get up and go to the break room. I bounced around a few things in my head before responding.
“Would that have worked? Getting federal equipment to fake a malfunction?” Her giggle filled the void.
Thunder was clapping in the background. Suddenly, the fall-scented candle was the coziest thing ever, and if my leg wasn’t propped up on a stool, perfectly pain-free at the moment, I would have gotten up to search for a dessert and a lap blanket.
“I’ve been alone in a lookout tower with no cell phone service for several weeks. No gimmicks needed— I’d have a conversation with a bird if it complied. In fact, I think I see one that just landed on the railing. Let me call you back—”
She was funny, and I found myself covering my mouth and talking low so Melody couldn’t hear me. “What kind of bird is it?” A pause, long enough to wonder if she really did step out onto the porch, filled the air.
“Not a talking bird, apparently. But Polly does want a cracker. The thing just flew off with half a sleeve of Ritz. Now, I have a can of spray cheese that has nowhere to go.”
“I’ve always preferred to consume spray cheese straight out of the can.” Melody re-entered the room and I realized I didn’t care if she heard me talking to Autumn. This was the most fun I’d had since I was fighting fire.
“So, other than spray cheese, what else do you like, Blaze?” Autumn was a conversationalist compared to the other lookouts.
“Fire,” I said, nodding with the assurance that God placed in my heart. “Firefighting, fire science, bonfires—I’ve been obsessed with it all my life.”
“I was going to ask you how you got your name. Is it a nickname? Or divine intervention that you are named after the thing you love the most?” I smiled at her question.
“It was also the thing my dad loved most. Hence, he named his only child after it.” A short pause, followed by a question.
“Loved? As in—”
“Yes. He died in the fires of 08’. I was just six years old.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, her voice full of kindness.
Suddenly, I felt the emotion of losing my dad run through my veins.
I thought about him constantly, but for some reason, when Autumn just said that, it felt new again.
I swallowed away the lump in my throat and thought of what I could change the subject to.
“Thank you. So, what about you? Is autumn the thing that you love most?” At that, Melody got up again, grabbing a phone from her purse and taking it back into the breakroom.
“You know, I’ve never thought about it like that.
But now that you say it… Other than Jesus, yes.
I love autumn. It’s the best season there is.
In fact, I’d eat the desserts all year round if I could.
And I can, so you better believe that I do.
” My mind suddenly went to the memory of the gorgeous redhead woman at the Fairy Falls Grocery Store buying the pumpkin trifle.
But seeing that woman didn’t compare to talking to this one.
There was a banter between us already—a familiarity, a comfort, that I hadn’t found with other people.
As we talked, I learned that she was a Christian, a lover of desserts, fall, and that she was a last minute fill-in for this position and had only been here for half the season.
“Why is that? What made you want to drop everything and leave everyone to be a firewatcher in a remote tower?”
“Ah, it’s a long, boring story that I’ll save for another time,” she teased.
My heart felt like it squeezed at her words.
I wished I could have known right then and there, but I respected that it was none of my business, and she wasn’t ready to share that.
Melody stood near me, looking at me expectantly.
I sighed and put the radio back on its receiver.
“Hi, Melody. Looking for a lighter?” I pointed to her candle that had almost diffused itself due to the wick burning down faster than the wax could dissolve.
“We just need to remember to keep things… Professional around here.” I nodded in agreement.
“Will do, Melody. Although if you are referring to me talking to the people who are living alone, in completely remote settings, up high in fire towers not being professional, then I really don’t know what to say to that.
It’s not like we have anything else happening right now.
” Melody shrugged and walked off, the small flame in her candle fighting for its life. I leaned over and blew it out.