Fire Front

By Carl Bowen and Marc Lee

As the son of a state senator, Jason Garrett had most of his life handed to him on a silver platter. His father even pulled a few strings to secure him a top spot on the world’s newest, most elite wildfire fighting crew: the FIRESTORMERS. But standing on front lines against hundred-foot walls of 2,000-degree flames, Garett must rely on his own courage, heart, and crewmates to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: May 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781496590480

Carl Bowen

Carl Bowen's novel, Shadow Squadron: Elite Infantry, earned a starred review from Kirkus.  He lives in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Book preview

FIRESTORMERS

Elite Firefighting Crew

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As the climate changes and the population grows, wildland fires increase in number, size, and severity. Only an elite group of men and women are equipped to take on these immense infernos. Like the toughest military units, they have the courage, the heart, and the technology to stand on the front lines against hundred-foot walls of 2,000-degree flames. They are the FIRESTORMERS.

KLAMATH NATIONAL FOREST

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Established: May 6, 1905

Coordinates: 41°30′01″ N, 123°20′00″ W

Location: California, USA: Oregon, USA

Size: 1,737,774 acres (2,715 square miles)

Elevation Range: 450–8,900 feet above sea level

Ecology: Stretching from northern California into southern Oregon, Klamath National Forest is a rich, diverse biosphere. Stands of old-growth ponderosa pine and Douglas fir dominate the landscape from the banks of the Salmon and Scott Rivers to the top of the Klamath Mountains. Many threatened and endangered species call this region home, including northern spotted owls and wild coho salmon.

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CHAPTER ONE

Lieutenant Jason Garrett didn’t consider himself a thrill seeker. He didn’t consider himself a hero or even much of a leader. How then, he wondered, did he wind up inside a CASA 212 turboprop, ready to jump onto the fire front of a thousand-degree inferno? It was enough to make him question his sanity.

Or maybe, he thought, I’m just a closet adrenaline junkie.

Five minutes! shouted the flight’s jumpmaster as he worked his way through the plane’s cramped passenger compartment.

The jumpmaster was a kid just out of college, who’d been hurling himself out of airplanes for a decade already. Lieutenant Garrett had it on good authority that the kid was the best in California. Still, Garrett would’ve preferred that someone older than himself perform the final checks on his crew’s chutes and gear riggings.

Lieutenant Garrett would’ve also preferred to be on the ground, all things considered.

He knew how to skydive — he’d been on dozens of training jumps — but this was his first jump as an official smokejumper. It was also his first mission as strike team leader for the nation’s newest, most elite firefighting crew: Firestormers.

That fact alone should have made Jason Garrett proud.

It didn’t. The lieutenant’s training should have overridden his nervousness.

It hadn’t.

As the plane neared its designated drop zone, Lieutenant Garrett couldn’t help but wonder, What the heck am I doing here?

* * *

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Dad, what am I doing here? Garrett had asked his father three months earlier.

Jason’s father, Senator John Big Jack Garrett, had invited him to breakfast out of the blue. After working back-to-back, twenty-four-hour shifts at the Portland fire station, Jason would’ve preferred to sleep in.

But nobody said no to Big Jack.

I talked to the governor yesterday, Big Jack said through a mouthful of thick-cut bacon. He tells me you turned down a medal for what you did last week.

You mean my job? Jason asked. He hadn’t eaten much of his own breakfast, which his father had ordered for him like he was a kid. I don’t want a medal for doing my job.

Big Jack slurped a forkful of sunny-side-up eggs. "You saved eighteen people’s lives, son.