One Careless Moment (5 page)

Fires appear different when seen from the air. They're silent and look smaller against the surrounding forest. They can appear deceptively benign, almost beautiful in their own way. But there's nothing beautiful about this one. It's a killer, belching flames and poisonous fumes.

A real dragon. The helicopter banks and we circle to the beast's spiny tail.

Two engines have returned and sit on the narrow bush road like bright red and green toy trucks. Men in yellow stand next to the tankers. Others walk along the dozerline — now surrounded by black on both sides — as if trying to figure out what happened. The dozer toils up the south flank, cutting line along the new fire perimeter. It looks disorganized down there. In my headset I hear Grey giving directions, getting things rolling. He pauses and I see his head shake.

“Damn,” he mutters through the intercom. “What a cluster.”

He's in the front seat and I can't read his expression, but he must not think much of my leadership abilities, letting something like this happen. That makes two of us. I wait until Grey is done giving orders from his lofty perch before asking to set down at the tail. I want to look at where the fire jumped the line, but Grey shakes his head.

“Negative, Cassel. As soon as they're done with you, you're headed out of here.”

We fly in silence for a few minutes. The bombers arrive, a group of old Navy P2Vs. We rise to five thousand feet and the fire looks smaller, more abstract. Grey talks with the lead plane, a small Cessna which flies ahead of the three bombers, guiding them in for their drops. I stare down at the canyon — from here it looks much steeper as it rises up the side of the mountain — and think of other fires I've heard of where more than trees were burned. Mann Gulch. Storm King. Winthrop. Over the years, hundreds of firefighters have been killed on the line, in dozens of notorious fires.

Now there's another name to add to the list — the Holder's Canyon Fire.

Brashaw mentioned squatters at the end of the road and I strain to make out buildings beyond the north ridge. I catch a glimpse of something shiny, like a signal mirror from the trees. Then it's gone. So are the bombers, headed back for a refill. A long red streak across the canyon ahead of the fire attests to their work; a line of hope, drawn on the forest canopy. They'll be back in about forty-five minutes. Our fire is now priority number one.

“Have you had other arsons like this?” I ask over the headset.

“No,” says Grey. “Nothing like this.”

The radio squawks. My presence is requested on the ridge and the machine swings wide, giving us another view of the crushed little shelters. When we're down, I get out. Grey doesn't. The machine augers away and I'm left at the edge of the cliff with no radio, my ears still buzzing from the turbo whine of the engine. I trudge along the ridge toward the shelters. A half-dozen firefighters huddle a good distance back. I recognize Galloway, shorter and slimmer. I want to talk to her again, find out more about the excursion that burned us over, but as I pass Compton and Aslund, standing by the border of yellow crime scene tape, Compton waves me over.

“I've got a few questions for you, Cassel, if you don't mind.”

I nod, mentally brace myself for the start of a painful inquisition, but Compton is in no hurry. He checks the recording on a small video camera, kneels to stow it in his pack. I get a good view of the holstered pistol on his hip, then he stands, takes out a little flip notebook. “You're from Canada, right?”

“Yeah. Alberta.”

“And you're here as part of the US Forest Service command structure?”

“Yes. Upon arrival at the fire, I was assigned command.”

Compton frowns. “So, you're responsible for what happens here?”

Normally, this is a simple yes or no question, but today it seems a little leading.

“Yes, I'm responsible for the safety of the men under my command.”

“I see.” Compton scribbles something in his notebook. “What are your qualifications?”

Qualifications are a matter of record; he could get the information from the Forest Service, either here or back in Alberta, but I remind myself that Compton is not part of the Forest Service. He deals with criminals, which takes a different style. “I'm a certified Type II Incident Management Commander.”

“And how did you end up on the ridge?”

A simple question, loaded with significance; I'm sure I'll hear it more than once. They'll want to know if my actions followed procedure, or if they were careless. They'll question my judgment — I don't blame them, I'm starting to do the same. If I'd listened to Brashaw and his superstitions, this might never have happened. But you can't fight a fire that way.

“I needed an aerial view of the fire. Given the fire behaviour, this location appeared acceptable.”

Both Compton and Aslund make notes in their flip pads. They don't press further on my use of the ridge. That'll come later, in a task force investigation. Compton asks the next question without looking up.

“When did you discover the fire was an arson?”

I tell them about finding the fusee cap on the side of the road, searching for and finding the origin. They're both watching me but I talk to Aslund. If conditions were different, it would be me in his boots, investigating the arson. I conclude with a brief description of the way the fusee appeared to have been set, based on the residue; how I marked the spot with ribbon.

“You didn't post a guard?” says Compton.

“No, but I communicated a warning to all staff on the fire to stay well back.”

Compton frowns, writes something in his flip pad.

“I'll need you to show me the origin,” says Aslund.

“No problem.”

“You saved the fusee cap?”

“Yes, I bagged it. Unfortunately, it was in the truck.”

“The one that burned up?”

I nod and they both take notes. I can't help wondering, in a situation like this involving both a fatality and arson, what the protocol is between the Sheriff 's Office and the Forest Service. So I ask. Aslund and Compton exchange glances and it occurs to me that they're not sure. In fact, I doubt they'll be the ones conducting the investigation. They're front-line people, beat cops — senior staff will undoubtedly take over an incident of this magnitude. Compton glances toward Brashaw's fire shelter.

“Due to the arson, Mr. Brashaw's death will be considered a homicide.”

Aslund and I hike down the backside of the ridge, through a stand of blackened, branchless tree trunks. He doesn't like helicopters, he tells me. Damn things tend to crash. A plane is one thing, but that main rotor goes and you fall like a stone. So we walk.

Ash, whipped by wind, envelops us in a choking grey cloud. With the understory stripped away, the slope is visibly steeper than I remember and I marvel that Brashaw and I managed to scramble back up to the ridge so quickly.

“So you found the fusee cap by the road,” he says, reviewing.

“Yes. It was a few yards into the trees.”

“Like someone threw it?”

“Maybe. Or they were walking off the road, to avoid footprints, and dropped it.”

Aslund nods, thinking about this. He's in his early forties, lean to the point of emaciation. Hair, shaved to stubble, blends with stubble on his neck and chin. Adam's apple like the wedge of an axe. Eyes like a falcon, alert and inquisitive. “What about tire tracks?” he says.

“Not that I noticed. But we moved a lot of vehicles and the ground is as dry as concrete.”

The slope begins to level as we near the trail to the old bear hunting camp. Visible through a picket of black trunks, twin ruts snake their way along the side of the slope. The truck can be seen from a distance, blackened and sitting strangely low. I notice as we approach that it is resting on its rims, tires vaporized. Everything not metal is gone, even the paint, giving the vehicle a skeletal look, like the husk of a dead beetle. The windows have melted out, blobs of glass on the ground like dropped marbles. Coil springs from the seat lie in perfect formation on the metal floor, looking strangely out of place. I reach through the vacant window, pull open the glove compartment. It yields with a painful scrape.

“Anything left?” says Aslund, coming up behind me.

“Nothing but ash.”

“Why did you put the cap in the glove compartment?”

“For security. In case there were fingerprints.”

Fusee caps are waxy and would hold a good print, in case the arsonist was careless enough not to wear gloves. Aslund nods but doesn't say anything and we continue down the trail.

“You're a fire investigator?” Aslund says, walking beside me.

“Yes. I have a contract with the Alberta Forest Service.”

“You get many arsons up north?”

“Too many,” I say, thinking about the previous summer. “What about you guys?”

“Nothing like this,” he says, echoing Grey's comment.

“No fusee fires?”

He shakes his head. “This is the first wildfire arson around here in years.”

“You have any idea why someone might want to start a fire here?”

“Not yet,” Aslund says with a half grin. “But I'm working on it.”

At the road, we're mobbed by firefighters from Brashaw's crew. They've been monitoring the radio and know the fatality must be their leader. They want details. More information doesn't always make it easier but I tell them most of what happened. They're suddenly silent, listening to me, the horror of it clear on their faces. This is every firefighter's worst nightmare and they stare at their boots, scuffing dirt listlessly.

“I'm sure it happened quickly,” I tell them. It's not much, but it's something.

“Don't tell anyone,” Aslund cautions. “We've got to notify the family first.”

“This is going to kill Del,” says a young firefighter with long hair.

“Does this mean we're going home?” asks another.

We push through the crowd, leave them to discuss the day's events. It doesn't take long to find where the game trail leaves the road and we follow it into the burn. I stop once or twice and look around to be sure we're on the right trail. We seem to be, but I can't see any ribbon.

I pass the spot I'm sure was the origin and stop.

“Where is it?” asks Aslund.

“I don't know,” I tell him, looking around. “It was right here.”

3
•

THE FIREFIGHTERS, WITH nothing to do but work the tail of the fire, have progressed farther into the black than usual, mopping up the area to keep busy. Commendable behaviour, except they have obliterated the origin — sprayed it down and trampled the area with bootprints and hose drags — which is odd; in the openness of the burn, the pink fluorescent ribbon should have shone like a beacon. Wind might have blown down the ribbon, but this seems unlikely as I tied it tightly to the hardened branch of a burned tree. Even if the ribbon was lost for some reason, there should still be the hard, white slag tubes from the fusee; they're not water soluble. But there's absolutely nothing here.

“Maybe we're at the wrong spot,” says Aslund.

I don't think so. There are enough burned trees that look the same to create some doubt as to exactly where the ribbon was tied, but I've got a good memory and this is definitely the right area. I look around, trying to remember where I found the fusee slag. There has to be something left.

Aslund shifts beside me, getting impatient. “Let's look around some more.”

“No, it was here.”

The firefighters chewed up the ground pretty good with the high-pressure hoses. I landmark at a bend in the trail, walk a dozen paces, squat on my haunches and inspect the ground, looking for flecks of white. “I'm positive it was right here.”

Aslund stoops over me. “What exactly did you see when you found it?”

“Three or four slag tubes,” I say, pointing, as if that might help. “Some fine fuel residue.”

He waits a moment longer. “I'm going to look around a bit more.”

While Aslund prospects in the burn, I examine the immediate area more carefully, working in a grid pattern. I start well back from where I think the origin was, walking slowly and studying the ground. The ribbon and fusee residue had to go somewhere. A gust of wind could have carried the ribbon some distance beyond the origin. A firefighter could have mistaken the ribbon as marking a hotspot and pulled it down once he was sure the spot was out. Maybe the high-pressure jets of water chewed up the ground enough to obscure the slag, or blew it beyond the area we've searched. But after a half-hour of searching, I find nothing, even though I've covered and re-covered a large area around the origin.

Aslund returns, asks if I've found anything.

Nothing, I tell him. He frowns, shaking his head. “I don't know, Cassel —”

“Well, it was here. I saw it.”

“If you say so.”

“You don't believe me?”

“Sure,” he says. “I believe you.”

“But?”

Aslund shifts on his feet. He seems distracted, uncomfortable. “Nothing.”

“Look,” I say. “Something is clearly bothering you. What is it?”

“You mean other than the absence of any physical evidence?”

“If everything is gone, then it's not by accident.”

“You think someone purposefully tore down the ribbon? Pocketed the residue?”

“Maybe. It had to go somewhere.”

He thinks for a minute. “What did you make of the burn patterns?”

“Inconclusive. The wind in the canyon whipped the fire around quite a bit.”

Aslund nods. I can see where he's going with this. No physical evidence of arson and no conclusive pattern of fire travel to support that this is where the fire started. Good thing I called it in before the burnover, or they might have suggested my origin identification was a trauma-induced hallucination. Thankfully, Aslund is too professional to push this further. “Given the origin may have been sabotaged,” he says, “what do you suggest we do?”

“Ask the firefighters. They may have seen something.”

Aslund gives me a look mirroring my own thoughts: Or they may be responsible.