Backpacking in the Kalmiopsis would be challenging for anyone—but visually impaired Kal Spencer isn’t one to shy away from difficulties. When her father, Will, proposes a dad-daughter backpacking adventure, young Kal is all in. She’s hiked before, and she knows how to follow a companion by sounds. Her mother, Joss, reluctantly agrees. After waiting for thunderstorms to clear the region, Will and Kal head into the wilderness.
Miles away from the backpackers, a small lightning-caused wildfire suddenly explodes into a giant conflagration. Fueled by bone-dry timber, the fire consumes thousands of acres in a matter of hours. A massive firefighting response is mobilized. Fire managers plan how to attack the blaze but knowledge of the backpackers is lost in an administrative miscommunication.
Fact to Fiction
Several years ago I rented a cabin in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon as a base for a few days fly fishing with my son, Nick. The cabin was located on the outskirts of the unincorporated town of Prospect —population 450. It’s a remote area but not totally isolated. A two-lane state highway ran nearby.
Soon after our arrival, a wildfire broke out about 60 miles to the southeast. We weren’t in immediate danger but close enough to witness a mind-blowing display—the mobilization of firefighting forces. The road in front of our cabin was the only paved road leading to the rapidly expanding wildfire, and in the morning we’d sit on the rustic porch and watch a caravan of firefighting vehicles roaring past. Pumper trucks, foam trucks, flatbed trailers hauling bulldozers, command SUVs, buses filled with boots-on-the ground firefighters in their yellow hardhats and Nomex shirts. It seemed endless. The buses made cyclical runs, delivering crews to the fire camp then hustling back up the road to reappear an hour later with more firefighters. And then more. And more. Attack helicopters and DC-9 tankers thrummed relentlessly overhead. It was a stunningly massive and swift response.
From that experience came the seed of a plot. What if some campers were truly isolated, backpacking somewhere in the mountains, way out of cell phone range, when a major, fast-moving wildfire broke out? There’re always backpackers out in the wilds, trekking along trails deep into canyons and forests. How could they possibly be located in time? Who, if anyone, bore the responsibility for that?
My curiosity led me to start interviewing firefighters, wildfire commanders, dispatchers, and folks working the “wildfire desk” at the National Weather Service. Visits to the base of a firefighting crew of helicopter rappellers in Merlin, Oregon, would become an essential component of an eventual novel, Incident 395.
The main storyline is about a recently divorced father who takes his blind, eleven-year-old daughter on a bonding adventure backpacking in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness of southern Oregon (lotsa research on sight-impaired backpacking there). As the novel came together, the incredible coordination and technical expertise required of a major wildfire response became a parallel storyline that I loved telling. The dedication of those who face one of nature’s most destructive and lethal forces is a passion fused with drama, raw emotions, and heart.
Thanks to author John Riha
Learn more about this author at: Website
You can find other books by Mr. Riha at: BRAG Medallion
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