Wildfire

Chapter Six

Wanasri was having a busy day. Engine 33 had been called to a two-storey warehouse on the edge of town. Two teams were already there, playing hoses over the flames, but the fire was licking through the walls and the floors. A giant plume of black smoke hung in the air, blotting out the sun. Nearby, in the drive of the warehouse next door, a group of twenty or more people had gathered, watching the fire with expressions of dismay. A few of them were probably bystanders, but the rest were employees evacuated from the building.

As Wanasri jumped down from the truck, she saw three firefighters in breathing masks coming out of the building. Their turnout gear was glistening wet and they were moving slowly, as though their clothes were very heavy. She had seen that distinctive walk before; it meant the heat was taking its toll. Inside the ware-house must be very hot — much hotter than the fire they had just been to.

Petra gave Wanasri and the others a pep talk as they pulled on their gear. ‘The other crews have cleared the ground floor. You’ve got to check the top floor. The guys think the manager is up there as he’s the only one unaccounted for. The fire’s been knocked back to the ground floor, so you’ll have to be quick. Take breathing gear.’ She opened a hatch at the side of the red truck. Backpacks and masks were hanging there ready on pegs.

Wanasri picked up a breathing pack and shrugged it over her bony shoulders onto her back.

Andy was watching her as she did up the fastening. ‘Is this your first time inside?’

Wanasri guessed Andy was wondering if she would freeze again. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll be OK.’ She took down a mask, wiped the visor clean and pulled it over her head. It smelled of rubber and smoke. She took a few moments to acclimatize. She hated wearing the mask. You couldn’t see very well through the goggles and it stopped you hearing anything but your own breathing. And it was always unsettling to put one on and breathe the smell of the previous fire. It always made Wanasri wonder, How had that one turned out?

Darren clapped her on the back. ‘Come on, let’s go!’

Wanasri pulled her helmet on, grabbed a small extinguisher and ran with them up the metal fire escape on the outside of the building. Darren jemmied open the fire door with a crowbar and they were in.

The interior of the building was black with smoke. The heat was like opening an oven door.

Although the Engine 33 crew carried small extinguishers, it wasn’t their job now to put out flames. Wanasri, Petra, Darren and Andy would have to rely on the firefighters outside to do that.

Petra switched on her torch and touched Darren on the shoulder. That was the signal to pair off. They started to walk carefully into the darkened warehouse. The smoke swallowed them up. They became invisible, except for flashes of torchlight glancing on glowing yellow bands.

Wanasri and Andy set off towards the right-hand side of the building. They stayed close together, walking slowly. Wanasri’s amplified breathing sucked and rasped in her ears. Her torch turned the smoke into glowing fog. They had to move by feel, which made the search process agonizingly slow. That was why they needed four people to search one floor in a warehouse.

Along the middle of the room, a series of metal shelves was stacked with surfboards. The paint was peeling in the heat. Wanasri noted that and was glad of her mask. She was a surfer herself and knew the materials in the boards could combust and give off poisonous fumes.

She noticed that the fire was licking along the skirting boards. Were her eyes getting used to the gloom, or was the fire on the floor below burning harder? At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before the walls up here caught as well.

Wanasri took another step and felt something give under her feet. Too late, she registered what was happening. The floorboards had given way, and she was crashing through! Beyond her feet was a hungry mass of flames.

She was falling into them—

Suddenly something stopped her. As she was dragged back, she looked round in shock. Andy had managed to catch the straps of her airpack, and he hauled her back onto her feet. Her breath roared inside her respirator. Below, the flames burned and crackled. If she had fallen through she would have been trapped down there.

She’d had a narrow escape.

There was no time now to think about that, though. She still had a job to do. She tore her gaze away from the flames that had so nearly claimed her and continued her search, stepping even more carefully through the building.

She saw movement ahead, a flash of fluorescent jacket in her torchlight. Petra was bending over something on the floor, then she straightened up slowly. Over her shoulder was a limp figure wearing a breathing mask.

They had found the manager. And he was alive. Wanasri went to help Petra carry him down.

Bel was in the foyer waiting for Major Kurtis. He had gone out to post a birthday card to his wife. Surely that shouldn’t take long? She looked at her watch. He’d been gone for ten minutes, even though he was supposed to be on the panel debating weather fore-casting technology and it was starting in barely five minutes. She needed to brief him, but they were fast running out of time.

Outside was a group of environmental campaigners with placards. They had been gathering since early that morning, eager to join in the public debate later in the afternoon. Some of them wore T-shirts from old Fragile Earth campaigns. Good for you, thought Bel.

Others carried placards. She saw: WHAT REALLY CAUSED THE OZONE LAYER HOLE? And STOP SECRET US EXPERIMENTS.

That one must be from the mysterious Oz Protectors who had leafleted Jonny Cale that morning. If she got time before the public debate, she’d go and chat to them and find out what their issues were.

Bel looked at her watch. In fact, if the major didn’t hurry up and come back, maybe she’d haul the campaigners in to take his place.

When she looked back at the door, the campaigners’ placards had moved. Before, they had been spread out in a line; now they were bunched together around something, and there was shouting.

The conference centre security guard pulled open the door and went outside. Curious, Bel followed him.

Before she even got as far as the door, the guard was coming back. He had a sheltering arm around Major Kurtis and was barging protestors out of the way as he escorted him back into the foyer.

‘What happened to you?’ said Bel.

‘The rent-a-mob guys collared me.’ The major had an Oz Protectors leaflet in his hand. He crumpled it into a ball and dropped it into the rubbish bin. ‘They see the uniform and they all think the worst.’

Bel folded her arms. ‘Well, that’s not entirely surprising, is it? The United States has the worst record on green issues. These people protest because they care, and thank God they do.’

‘I’m not arguing with that,’ said the major, still clearly rattled by his encounter with the protestors. ‘But not every bad thing that happens in the world is the fault of the US, you know.’

Bel stepped aside to let a group of delegates go through into the auditorium. ‘Time’s getting on, we need to talk about this debate. We’ve had to change the other speaker … Ah, here he is.’ She waved, and a figure walking down the stairs waved back and started walking towards them. ‘Dr Yamanouchi?’

The elderly man in a rumpled corduroy suit, his black hair threaded with grey, was about to greet Bel when his eyes opened wide with surprise.

‘Brad Kurtis. I didn’t recognize you at first.’

‘Dr Yamanouchi,’ replied the major. ‘How are you?’

‘Do you two know each other?’ said Bel.

‘Dr Yamanouchi was my tutor at Harvard,’ replied the major.

The doctor looked at the major again, shaking his head. ‘You know, the last thing I would have expected was to see you in a military uniform.’

The major gave Dr Yamanouchi a broad Texan smile. ‘It’s not what I imagined myself doing twenty years ago, but it’s worked out quite well.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re a soldier,’ said the doctor. ‘You must have sold them one of your vastly impractical schemes.’

Bel was interested. ‘His schemes?’

Major Kurtis smoothed his hand over his cropped hair. ‘My strength was theoretical research. Whereas Dr Yamanouchi thought I should be finding new ways to analyse rainfall.’

‘Yes, I still remember Brad going on about weather control. He talked about nothing else for months. You had your head in the clouds in those days.’

Major Kurtis gave a forced laugh. ‘Well, at least I’ve moved on from that. Those corduroy trousers look like the same ones you used to wear twenty years ago.’

Bel put her hands up to call for silence. ‘Time out, guys. Save it for in there. If you two argue like that on the stage we’re going to have a great debate. Let’s get this show on the road.’

As Bel shepherded them into the auditorium, she heard a rapping noise on the window outside. She turned and saw one of the campaigners waving. He pressed a placard up against the window and rapped on the glass again, as if trying to reinforce its message: