For hotshot Curtis Browning, battling forest fires and attending the University of California at Santa Barbara is a balance between two worlds - one of roaring orange flames, caustic smoke and the clamor of chainsaws and curse words, the other, life in an idyllic college town on the Pacific Ocean with all the promise and excitement of youth at the cusp of adulthood. After the grandmother who raised him passes away, except for the camaraderie and loyalty of his roommates and the rough young men on the hotshot crew, Curtis is alone in the world. Struggling to find deeper meaning, he focuses on living in the moment and the divine beauty of nature. With summer here, Curtis takes a break from studying and navigates between raging wildfires and the alluring Sirens’ call of parties, surfing and enjoying the atmosphere of beautiful undergrads. Everything changes when a bewitching young woman from Ventura drops into his life. Searching for the romantic ideal just became a little more complicated.
Napa Register, "The writing has a vigorous, lean, down to earth quality that really suits the narrator -- terrific."
The Union, "I'm past nostalgia when the smoke hangs heavy and the news crackles. Living in California these days, like the neighbors, we're holding our breath, wary of the heat, the gasoline grass, the oak stands, the one road out. We moved about two rock throws from an edge of last fall's Lobo Fire. On edge. That's us.Fires are everywhere, up north, west, down by Yosemite. Burning more than ever, one report a bit wildly asserts.
I loved the big seasons once, years ago when I made my living fighting these blazes.
Then I read this damned book, Triangle of Fire, a novel about my very crew, the author's story tracking remarkably close to my own real life. The fire line, the long drives, the store after work. The novel's hero even stuffs a paperback in his gear like I did. Everything but the motorcycle he drives, instead of the pickup nearly everyone else has. I had a pickup then, yellow and small. Hadn't given it a thought in decades.
The characters leap off the page, along with the banter, the KFC on smaller fires, looking for a pay phone to call that girlfriend who wondered where you were for weeks, you wondering if she'd still be there when you got back. Sometimes not. There's a coming of age element to the story, though not in an adolescent way. My own greater passage came in my 20s, the hotshot experience shaping me far more than any school.
I can vouch for authenticity, having lived this story. It's not sugar coated or falsely heroic. What might seem bigger than life I saw happen. The love story feels right, too, with similar sweetness and familiar conflicts. I read and suddenly remember my beeper going off at 2 a.m., me hustling into my clothes and boots, she asking, "Where?" "Don't know." "How long?" "No way to tell." "Well, you certainly seem awfully happy about it." She's not.
The book brought it all back, all those memories, these guys, real life heroes and mentors. "
