Summer of Fire by Linda Jacobs

Incident Commanders in the country, calling the plays in a military style organization.
    “So where does this Unified Area Command fit in?” She paused on the stairs flanked by elegant rock walls leading up to incongruous modern wire mesh doors.
    “Starting today, the National Park Service and Forest Service are to coordinate over the park and surrounding areas. They’ve put me in charge.” Garrett rolled his expressive eyes. “But I expect I’ll be acting more as referee with those two groups.”
    Clare had not realized how influential Buddy’s friend in wildfire was.
    Garrett reached for the door and held it open for her. “I’ll show you the latest fire extents map.”
    Something dark in his tone made her say, “I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”
    In the doorway, they stepped aside to make way for two young men carrying a metal desk.
    Inside, an empty vaulted room with pine beams ran the width of the building. Their footsteps echoed on the scuffed pine floor that bore the dusty prints of the movers. Garrett led the way through a pair of metal swinging doors that looked out of place in the otherwise rustic room.
    A dramatic staircase led down into a larger space that had once been the main dining room for travelers at Yellowstone’s western gateway. Looking at the soaring space, however, gave Clare the impression of a symphony played by a tone-deaf orchestra. The fireplace had been boarded up, cheap fluorescent fixtures hung from the ceiling, and squares of speckled tan linoleum covered the floor.
    More movers shuffled in with furniture. A woman from the phone company clasped cables together with ties.
    Garrett rubbed his bald head that bore the sheen of old mahogany and led Clare to a large mounted mosaic of topographic quadrangle maps. Clear plastic overlaid Yellowstone and the area surrounding it, with the extent of the burned areas outlined in black marker.
    “The Yellowstone fires have increased tenfold, from eighty-six hundred acres to eighty-seven thousand in the past week.” Garrett’s thick finger pointed out the largest burn of nearly fifty thousand acres in the unpopulated eastern highlands of the Absaroka Mountains. “The Mist and Clover fires started July ninth and eleventh and burned together on the twenty-second.” He moved his hand west. “Our problem now is the North Fork. It’s heading for Old Faithful.”
    She studied the oblong streak that began about ten miles due south of West Yellowstone and stretched in a northeasterly curve.
    “Started four days ago,” Garrett went on. “Some loggers took a cigarette break in the Targhee National Forest, not three hundred yards from the park boundary. With Old Faithful and Madison in its path, we’ll have one helluva battle.”
    “And no rain in sight,” she added.
    He nodded. “That’s the worst news.” With a gesture toward the map, he said, “I wanted you to see this. With your background training firefighters, I’ll need you to teach the military that will be brought in.”
    She’d suspected when she left Texas that her instructor experience might be brought into play. Now that she’d seen the Shoshone rear like a cobra, she wondered what she could bring to the picture. “What makes you think soldiers will be needed? The policy is to not to fight the fires inside the park.”
    “The Yellowstone Superintendent has suspended the natural burn policy. We’re to put ‘em all out.” His tone rang with finality.
    She looked at the command center, imagining it full of workers relaying information on weather, manpower, and terrain, deploying everything from helicopters to toilet paper.
    Garrett’s eyes moved from the fire map to meet hers. Broken blood vessels marred the whites of his, suggesting that the fire season was already taking its toll on his sleep. “When we bring in green troops, it’ll be your job to see that nobody gets killed.”
    Clare’s chest tightened. She thought of a child burned to death, or if