The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots

by Fernanda Santos

When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June of 2013, setting off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history, the twenty men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots sprang into action.

An elite crew trained to combat the most challenging wildfires, the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family, crisscrossing the American West and wherever else the fires took them. The Hotshots were loyal to one another and dedicated to the tough job they had. There's Eric Marsh, their devoted and demanding superintendent who turned his own personal demons into lessons he used to mold, train and guide his crew; Jesse Steed, their captain, a former Marine, a beast on the fire line and a family man who wasn’t afraid to say “I love you” to the firemen he led; Andrew Ashcraft, a team leader still in his 20s who struggled to balance his love for his beautiful wife and four children and his passion for fighting wildfires. We see this band of brothers at work, at play and at home, until a fire that burned in their own backyards leads to a national tragedy.

Impeccably researched, drawing upon more than a hundred hours of interviews with the firefighters’ families, colleagues, state and federal officials, and fire historians and researchers, New York Times Phoenix Bureau Chief Fernanda Santos has written a riveting, pulse-pounding narrative of an unthinkable disaster, a remarkable group of men and the raging wildfires that threaten our country’s treasured wild lands.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Survival, Adventure, Biography, Nature

273 pages, Hardcover

First published May 3, 2016

About the author

Fernanda Santos is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, winner of the Western Writers of America 2017 Spur Award for Best First Nonfiction Book. "The Fire Line" tells the story of 19 firefighters killed in an Arizona wildfire in 2013 — the deadliest in the United States since 1933, with the greatest loss of life among firefighters since the September 11 attacks.
Fernanda has reported in three languages, in Latin America and in the United States. She grew up in Brazil, where she bore witness to violence, inequality and immeasurable hope. In those scenes, she found her passion for telling true stories.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Human beings take shelter from hurricanes, flee tsunamis, keep their distance from tornadoes, move indoors when dust storms roll by. Wildfires, they choose to fight. They feel a certain familiarity with fire, have a sense that they can control it. Fire burns in campfires and fireplaces, flames on stove tops, flickers from candles that light up the darkness…In the wild, fire bullies and teases firefighters. Even in difficult situations, modern firefighters almost always come out on top. Even if they make a bad decision, they might reach a good outcome. That’s the unspoken reality behind many of their victories. Triumphs made for danger because they inspired confidence.”
- Fernanda Santos, The Fire Line


I first became fascinated by wildfires when I read Norman Maclean’s posthumous classic, Young Men and Fire, about the 1949 Mann Gulch fire that killed thirteen smokejumpers in Montana. The men had died racing uphill, chased by a fire that had blown up and cut off their escape route. Only three men of the crew survived. One of them, Wagner “Wag” Dodge had saved himself by lighting an escape fire to his front, even as death raced towards him from behind, one hundred yards away and closing. Wag Dodge survived because he lit a fire during a firestorm, and lay down in its still-warm ashes.

Two things struck me about Wag Dodge, and have stayed with me all these years. First, I will never have a name near as kickass as Wag Dodge. Second, I would never have that kind of presence of mind, to literally fight fire with fire, with death so close you can reach out and touch it.

As with many disasters, the study of wildfires is really an examination of complex decision-making under extreme duress. It is seldom nature alone that kills wildland firefighters. Rather, it is a combination of nature and human error.

It was at this intersection of fire and choice that 19 firefighters from the Granite Mountain Hotshots died. They were killed during the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2013, shortly after leaving a place of safety and marching overland through unburned ground. A rapidly evolving fire caught them in a box canyon from which there was no escape.

Fernanda Santos’ The Fire Line sets out to tell the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, and how they ended up in their fire shelters with a 2,000 degree fire bearing down on them. But though it starts out promisingly enough, it ultimately falls far short of even approaching an explanation for why one of the “deadliest days in American firefighting” ever occurred.

***

The Fire Line is written in brisk, journalistic fashion. At 218 pages of text, it is a very quick read. With space at a premium, Santos does not waste much time. She gives some background on the role of hotshots in wildland firefighting, weaves in the biographies of the crewmembers, and in short order, sets the stage for the fire outside Yarnell.

Santos does a good job explaining how the fire started small and quickly grew out of hand, as the men tasked with suppressing it lagged in their realization of the danger. In doing so, she mentions – though does not always fully explain – the many causes of so-called “megafires.” Catalysts include the shrinking of the urban-wildland interface; climate change, and the correspondingly higher temperatures that result; and firefighting policy, which for years has meant attacking every fire that sparks, leaving a wilderness of tinder-dry old growth. These factors are interrelated, and have resulted in private developments encroaching into combustible areas, a bad choice that is subsidized by taxpayers, who are paying to put out many fires that should be allowed to burn naturally. (Santos does not neglect to mention that many urban-wildland encroachers are wealthy folks building expensive homes, or second homes, which are then defended by men and women working fire lines at $12.09 an hour).

To a certain point, The Fire Line really worked. Santos does a very good job of capturing the men of Granite Mountain, and the families caught in their orbit. In her acknowledgments, she mentions that she attempted to read the books the firefighters read; to listen to the music they played; to walk in their footsteps by taking fire classes. She succeeds in capturing their essence without loading up on trivia.

But in a book centered on a deadly fire, nothing that comes before the fire really matters.

To that end, I’m not overly impressed with Santos’s handling of the critical moments of the Yarnell Fire. Nothing that happened to the men of Granite Mountain was inevitable. Something went very wrong, and there is a mystery there that calls out to be solved, or at least acknowledged.

***

Before their deaths, the Granite Mountain crew stood “in the black,” meaning they were positioned in an area that had already burned. What has burned once cannot burn again. They were, in other words, in a safe place. Had they made a different decision – had they no decision, and just sat there – all would have survived.

For some reason, though, they left the black and attempted to hike through rugged, unburned territory, in order to reach a safe point called the Boulder Springs Ranch. Before they got there, the fire caught them, giving the men just minutes to deploy fire shelters, which are heat deflectors, not designed to withstand direct flame.

There are questions here that are not probed. Why did the Hotshots leave the safe zone? Who gave the order? Did it come from on high, or down low? What might have the men have been thinking? Where, exactly, was Superintendent Eric Marsh located while events unfolded? (On this last day, Marsh acted as division supervisor, overseeing several teams, before dying with his crew. Noted fire writer John Maclean has posited that Marsh made it all the way down to the ranch, before heading back up the hill). When well-trained and smart and able-bodied professionals do something that ends in disaster, it calls out for inquiry.

Having belabored this point, I’ll give one example: Santos mentions in passing that “[Marsh] and [Acting Superintendent Jesse] Steed may have argued over the radio, presumably after Marsh directed Steed to lead the Granite Mountain Hotshots down toward the ranch…” This is a critical exchange, one that has been hotly debated since Brendan McDonough, a Granite Mountain lookout and lone survivor, mentioned hearing it on the radio. Instead of explaining the context of this critical information, and delving in to what it means, Santos just lets it go.

***

When I finished The Fire Line, it felt like a missed opportunity, with solid prep work and flawed execution. Giving it a bit more thought, though, I think I mismanaged my own expectations.

This realization occurred during a Sunday afternoon when I was supposed to be working. Instead, I spent 3 hours on Wildfire Today, a website devoted to – you guessed it! – wildfires, today. I read half a dozen articles about Yarnell, and literally hundreds of comments. As you might expect of a person commenting on a story in Wildfire Today, most were firefighters; many claimed to have personal knowledge of the blaze, from having been on one of the many crews to fight it.

The common theme among those commenting was a professional need to know what happened. Not out of mere curiosity (which is my only excuse), but because they don’t want to end up in the same box canyon, with a tidal wave of fire bearing down on them.

Yet, while they shared this common goal, their opinions on what happened diverged greatly. Almost all agreed that the official investigation (which is online, and which I have read) is insufficient. Beyond that, though, there is precious little shared space. At that moment, it occurred to me that attempting to take all these competing strands and make them into something coherent for an everyday reader is probably impossible.

More than that, it is clearly not what Santos intended. She meant this as a tribute of sorts, designed for general interest readers. She succeeds in this. Far be it from me to judge this solely on what I imagined it should be.

Still, I think there can be a tribute in learning why these men died. Moreover, the issues raised will only increase in urgency in the years to come. Sprawl will continue. High temperatures will continue. Fires will continue, and will continue to grow. There will be other hills, other canyons, other men and women on the line, and it is important to know what went wrong, in the hopes that it will not go wrong again.

[Brad P · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a difficult read, but not because of anything else but the fact it was so well done. I have never experienced reading a book like this before with my friends as subjects and my profession so accurately portrayed. I can't stomach Rescue Me or Chicago Fire because they loose sight of what makes the fire service great, both wildland and structure, and the mosaic of people drawn to help others(we'er not demigod heroes, just complex men and woman that choose a job that is fun, hard, sad and invigorating all at the same time that impacts the lives of others) .

The book tapped into the complexities of imperfect men drawn into a world that provided them focus and family, without finger pointing or pontificating. At the end of the day that was my greatest concern, how will the people involved be perceived, how can the truth be told of who they were in a way that delves beyond a fatal decision.

Read this book with an open mind. Wildland firefighting is an incredibly complex event that involves incredibly complex people that make the decision every year to forgot the comfort of an office job or time on the beach with friends and family head into the woods to fight fire across the county.

Satos became a student of the profession and the time she invested in research into our world is evident on every page of this book.

This book is worth a read.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The unspoiled beauty of the American West is a vision which competes with the cost of enjoying that vision. It is a magnet for developers eager to build on the interface that promises both scenic vistas and a congestion-free lifestyle. The result is a growing configuration of homes abutting remote tracts of forest and chaparral on elevated hillsides and promontories. Santos observes: “From 1990 to 2008, 60 per cent of all single-family homes built in the United States were built in the interface, many of them in the West, where more than 3 million residences are in areas of moderate to very high wildfire risk.” (p.30)

Overlapping this expansion is a troubling trend of erratic and extreme climate cycles. In the mid-90's dense underbrush grew during years of plentiful rain. This was followed by years of intense drought. Insect infestations that killed trees exacerbated the problem. “Fires began to burn hotter, longer, and more spectacularly; between 2000 and 2010, they consumed an average of 7 million acres of land a year, up 66% from the prior decade.” (p.37)

Santos' book is a riveting account of the Yarnell Mountain Fire which killed 19 firefighters on June 30, 2013. She does not look for any single cause for this tragedy. There were a succession of unpredictable circumstances. Certainly, there were mistakes and miscalculations. The more important question that she leaves the reader to ponder is the effectiveness of even the most sophisticated triage approach to wilderness fires and the ethics of asking men to risk their lives combatting a catastrophe created by our own short-sighted approach to development.

The Granite Mountain Hotshots were one of several specialized crews trained to fight wilderness fires designated as complex. That complexity encompassed factors such as accessibility of terrain, temperature, humidity, wind direction, velocity, and above all, risk to human lives and property. These specialized units live and train like a military unit during fire season. The training instills not just fitness and skill but teamwork and discipline. The Granite Mountain Hotshots were based in Prescott, Arizona. However, these units are mobile. “During its previous six seasons the crew had fought fires all over — as far north as British Columbia, as far east as North Carolina, and as far south as the Mexican side of the border with Arizona.” (p.27) This was not just a hard life. For most, the work was seasonal, and without overtime pay would be unsustainable. This was hard on family life and mental health. Santos includes interviews with family and friends of the 19 victims as well as photographs. Fourteen of the men in this crew were still in their twenties. These details give the reader a sense of personal connection to the men.

What I liked best about this book was Santos' attention to the complexities of wilderness fire fighting. Air support is something we take for granted. We assume that additional crews and equipment can be flown in as needed; that manual efforts can be supplemented with water and fire retardant released from the air; that conditions can be monitored easily by pilots. The reality is much more complicated. The logistics of aircraft, pilots and supplies can be time-consuming. There are always times when demand can outrun capacity. Fire retardant, like bombs, cannot be dropped with pinpoint accuracy. In the Yarnell Fire case, the retardant was dropped on areas the crew was trying to burn off in order to expand a cleared off area. Wind can fan the flames and smoke plume in mere seconds. At 4:18 PM the smoke plume at the Yarnell Fire was 31,500 feet. By 4:33 PM, the plume reached to 38,700 feet. The staging area for men and equipment is often separated from the fire perimeter by difficult terrain. Finally, heat and altitude limit the carrying capacity of a helicopter. Santos includes this description: “The helicopter's pilot had been looping over the fire, estimating its size — it was shaped like a cupped hand and covered about two acres. He'd spotted an opening, a distorted circle wide and flat enough for landing, and flew back to the station with the news. The spot was at nearly six thousand feet up the mountain. Taking off and landing at that altitude, on a hot day, was risky. Air is thin up high, less compressed, with fewer molecules per cubic unit. Add heat, and these air molecules pulsate and thin more, moving farther from one another. In aviation, that creates a dangerous condition called high density altitude. Pilots use charts of altitude and outside temperature to calculate the load their helicopters can carry. Too much weight and the helicopter drops out of the sky.” (p.73)

I started this book before the current fires devastating the wine country in California. The relevance of this book was increased for me by those events.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Human beings take shelter from hurricanes, flee tsunamis, keep their distance from tornadoes, move indoors when dust storms roll by. Wildfires, they choose to fight."

In the summer of 2013 a relatively minor wildfire in the parched lands near Yarnell, Arizona, was suddenly whipped into an apocalyptic holocaust by the winds of a thunderstorm. In an instant, 19 heroes who comprised the famous Granite Mountain Hotshots firefighting crew of Prescott, Arizona, were overtaken and killed. It was the worst firefighting disaster in America since 911, and the worst such wildfire tragedy in a century.

It did not matter that these men had followed all the protocols -- methods honed from decades of observing fatal firefighting efforts -- and had done everything to the letter that their training had taught them. The fickleness of nature and the arbitrary whims of Death will prevail. Skill is trumped by dumb luck, good or bad. Firefighters like the Hotshots literally put themselves at death's door; and in trying to close it they have to avoid being sucked into the void.

Apart from the possibility of bad luck, though, wildfire fighting also can bring to the fore all the faults that happen when humans confront chaotic events, and can't quite overcome the flaws inherent in their own fail-safe systems of control and management. Wildfire attack is not unlike logistical/tactical war planning and relies on the best decisions, intel, commands, coordination, and execution possible. Strategy must often give way to nimble ad-libbing. Even with the best soldiers -- and the Granite Mountain Hotshots were the best--the war can't be won in the face of a double-whammy of bad luck and poor leadership from the top.

In this case, there simply was a dearth of sufficient resources -- not an uncommon problem all over the American West, where the paucity of available planes, vehicles, tools and crews are dispersed often thinly to too many emergencies; resources that, like so many government services, are underfunded. During this fire, briefings were bungled, equipment was poorly doled out, coordination was random, miscommunication rampant, and exhaustion pervasive. One spotter was so tired he ignored a fire in favor of going to sleep. In another, a defensive fire line that was laboriously hacked from the scrub and lit -- a maneuver that might have saved the firefighters' lives -- was doused wrongly by overflying tanker planes with chemical retardant. Sort of the friendly fire of wildfire fighting.

But, in the end, it was the fickleness of nature and the lack of good escape options that did in the 19 heroic men. Wildfires, they all knew, know no logic, sometimes displaying contradictory behavior that almost seems malevolent.

Fernanda Santos has written a solid, superbly researched, well-structured and paced, and honorable account of this event and the men who sacrificed what, in many cases were full lives still to be lived. Some were barely out of high school. She traces the history of the crew, its various forays fighting wildfires across the US West and elsewhere, and the circumstances that led the group to its fateful day. Along the way, she also covers some of the history of wildfire fighting, its tactics, its safety measures and the everyday lives of families whose resilience is tested to the max.

Becoming a Hotshot required uncommonly good character, discipline, physical stamina, and judgment, because in few other pursuits can one's ill-judged actions so adversely and irrevocably affect others' lives. The Hotshots' superintendent, Eric Marsh, was not looking for perfection in his teammates, but character. He himself, a former alcoholic, realized that people could turn themselves around. He saw people as potential; not defined by their past weaknesses. The important thing was how they overcame them and committed themselves to further improvement.

The story the book tells is, of course, sad, but it is also very informative on a topic about which I had little previous interest. It will probably remain the definitive account of this disaster, and a good primary introduction to the world of wildfire fighting. Most importantly, it tells the kind of stories that need to be documented and told.

(KevinR@Ky 2016)

[Ariane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful tribute to the brave men of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. These men will live on in the hearts and minds of people who never had the honor to meet them, thanks to the diligent efforts of Fernanda Santos. I learned a great deal from this book, but I most enjoyed the personal stories about the individual firefighters and their families. I loved the narrative style and Santos' use of language.

These men, and their male and female colleagues across the country, are important public servants who protect and serve for so little personal gain. They deserve our recognition and respect. Well done!

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

My overall feeling once I finished this book is what a waste, as Ms. Santos provides a chronicle of a unit of firefighters, how they lived, and how they died. Call this a group portrait of a band of average men who aspired to live superior lives.

The big gap is that the perspective of the controlling political authorities, from the city government of Yarnell (AZ), to the state government of Arizona, is not really captured in this work. Some blame for the death of these men has to accrue to the fire supervisors, who lost control of a rapidly deteriorating situation, but that there were not sufficient command and control resources falls squarely on a state government that was trying to cheap out on public security. Add to that the perversity of residential building in areas that are guaranteed to be burned over, and expectations that said private property will be defended, and the foundations of disaster are established.

The one thing that can't be explained is why the Granite Mountain men chose to leave a situation of relative safety and put themselves in a death trap. One can only have suspicions, but these were tired men who were trying to do too much, were trying to defend their own home town from the fire, and had no command backup to override a bad decision. Still, firefighting will always be a dangerous business, and while you have to go out if it's your duty, nothing says you have to come back.

[Daniel Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This spring I went to a conference in Boston called Power of Narrative and got an early copy of THE FIRE LINE: The story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and one of the deadliest days in American firefighting.
I finished the book yesterday. It’s a fast-moving, vividly written read that transported me to the arid American west, a place where brave men battle wildfires that can turn and kill them.
Author Fernanda Santos was working as the Phoenix bureau chief of the New York Times when she read on Twitter that men had died fighting a wildfire. She drove off to learn more, covered the story for the newspaper and wrote this narrative nonfiction book.
The first pages of THE FIRE LINE lay out the basic facts of what happened near Yarnell, Arizona on June 30, 2013. A group of elite wilderness firefighters found themselves caught between a fast-moving blaze and a steep mountain that blocked their escape. They resorted to a desperate attempt to save their lives: hiding in tentlike fire shelters that repel heat. The fire was simply too hot - an estimated 2,000 degrees - and 19 men suffered what must have been agonizing deaths.
A sequence of errors led the men into this impossible position, but Santos’ narrative spends little time pointing fingers. She writes in the author’s note, “I knew, from early on, that to explain the great loss would lead far beyond assigning blame for the fatalities. In firefighting, decisions are based on probabilities, on the best information at hand, and they’re made quickly, very quickly.”
More than a simple explanation of what went wrong, THE FIRE LINE serves as an exploration of the peculiar world the men inhabited. It’s a world of days away from home and backbreaking labor, of clearing fire lines using chainsaws and hand tools like monkey paws, which are rakes with long teeth used for pulling vegetation between rocks.
Drawing on posthumous interviews with family members as well as documents ranging from job application forms to personal diaries, Santos introduces us to men like Travis Turbyfill, who keeps a copy of “Goodnight Moon” in his backpack and reads it to his daughters over the phone when out on assignments. Another notable man was Eric Marsh, a crew leader who’d interview prospective recruits with a question to probe their moral fitness for this rugged band of anti-fire soldiers: “When was the last time you lied?”
Their wives and girlfriends come to life, too - a grieving, pregnant widow feels so angry at her dead firefighter that she swings a sledgehammer and tears a hole in in a wall of a trailer.
Strong explanatory sections describe the relevant science: for instance, how a storm might not simply quench a fire, but actually create unpredictable winds that fuel it.
All of this is hard-won knowledge. Santos writes in the author’s note that she completed basic training at the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy in Prescott, Arizona, then returned for a course on the connection between fire and weather.
One of the biggest surprises of the book is bureaucratic: many of the men who died were temps, with relatively low pay, no health insurance, no paid holidays and no job security. After their highly publicized deaths, their employer, the city of Prescott, Arizona, fought to deny payments to the temps’ families.
I traveled to cover wildfires when I worked as a reporter in Arkansas, and I’ll never forget their strange power, how they reduced a home in the woods to ashes and how the flames continued to burn underground as dried-up tree roots carried the blaze deeper and deeper. THE FIRE LINE brings this dangerous natural phenomenon to life and raises serious questions about development patterns in the American west. Santos reports that by 2014, 17 million homes were situated in areas prone to wildfire. After reading this book, these development choices appear extraordinarily foolish.
Finally, and most important, THE FIRE LINE reflects clear love and respect for the family members of the dead firefighters who trusted Santos with their stories. It’s that love and respect that gives this book its heart. - Daniel Connolly

[Jojo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am fascinated by the men and women who risk their lives to fight fires. This is my third book i’ve Read about the big fire tragedies. I read Norman MacLean’s about the Montana one and the other about the 1994 Colorado where many wild land firefighters were trapped and killed. I remember this in the news about the Arizona Yarnell fire but didn’t know much. I decided to read this book after seeing the movie “Only the Brave” with Josh Brolin, Jennifer Connelly and Jeff Bridges, though the movie is mostly about the lone survivor in this case.

This book is very well researched but it does get bogged down with soooo many players in this sad story that it’s difficult to keep them straight. I wish the book had more photos to help keep that straight. I know from more online research that there might be more to the story about what went wrong between the two leaders of the Granite Mountain hotshots that contributed to their deaths and wonder what the lone survivor really heard on the radio. That doesn’t come up in the book.

It’s a good read if you like books like Into Thin Air or Alive : The Andes Mountain Survivors. Well written. Well researched.

[Linda Donohue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fernanda Santos did excellent work in presenting this story. I am a fast thinker, and she moved right along with the events and interviews and kept my interest. She was at the incident shortly after it occurred and followed it through, it was very personal to her. Living in Arizona we have heard a great deal about the Yarnell Fire tragedy and it is still in the news papers. I look forward to reading Fernanda's future works. I wish to thank GoodReads, the publisher and Ms. Santos for making this book available to me.

[Ayelet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish the book had a little bit more about the fire itself and maybe some explanation of the investigation afterwards. It was mainly about the men and their families, which was interesting. The problem was that it jumped from one person to another so quickly that it was hard to keep track of them. I would also have appreciated a map of the various locations.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I debated about whether to enter the Giveaway contest for this book. I was involved I wildland firefighting for 35 years and I wasn't sure I wanted to read about the lives and deaths of 19 well-trained firefighters. I also wasn't sure whether someone not involved with firefighting could understand the complexities and challenges faced by the firefighters. I was pleasantly surprised. This book is very well written and the research into the subject was accurate, exhausting and thorough. Ms. Santos did an excellent job of explaining the techniques, tools and complexities of fighting fires, especially near communities. Mistakes were made that cost 19 well trained and dedicated firefighters their lives and it is important that we learn from their experience. I hope that someone not involved with firefighting will understand Ms. Santos descriptions of the how fires behave and how they are fought. It was certainly clear to me. She also did a very good and sensitive job of humanizing the 19 deaths into real people; warts and all. You meet their families and learn about their paths to getting on the hotshot team and wanting to work so hard to put out fires. It brought me to tears. I hope that more people, especially those in the West, read this book and understand the danger that firefighters risk to try and save the homes and property of the increasing number of folks who live next to the wildlands and do little to make their property fire safe. As this book portrays so well, fires are unpredictable and we are limited in our abilities to put them out. Prevention is always best. Read this book.

[Dee Eisel · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first impression of this book isn’t as good as the previous I’d read on the subjectOn the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It. Santos’s book felt somehow colder, more scattered. While her firefighting credentials are comparable to Dickman’s, there was a feeling of greater distance from the firefighters and their story. I don’t think she’s as good a writer, and that makes the story less relatable.

Santos does go a bit more into the smaller-scale economics of the city of Prescott and the impact of many of the firefighters’ status as being without benefits. She has clearly spoken quite a bit with the co-founder of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, Darrell Willis, as that point of view is well-represented in the book. Brandon McDonough, the sole survivor of the team, is mentioned quite a bit but is less of a focal point in this book than Dickman’s. This is to her credit in some ways - the rest of the team is mentioned more and in relation to each other as well as McDonugh’s memories. It does lead to that feeling of scattering, though. There’s less relation to the reader. This isn’t a bad thing. This is more of a journalistic book. But it does mean that the team feels more like its own character instead of illuminating much of the very real human men who died. On the other hand, the families are treated with great respect and kindness in this book.

I loved the extensive footnotes. They give me a great jumping off place for future research if I want to go farther. Ultimately, though, I think it’s a matter of whether you’re more in the mood for a story about a man and his friends or a detailed writeup of a tragic event with some small insight into the people involved. Three of five stars, your milage may vary!

[Tricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story. Not the greatest writing. And there were just too many characters that were no distinguished from each other in any meaningful way.

[Gianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by my amazing professor, Mark Fiege, as supplemental reading for a research paper. It is everything I had hoped “young men and fire” would be.

[Sharalyn Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was so good! Really goes into detail about the time leading up to the tragedy! Also discuss the families afterword! Really enjoyed!

[Genia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent writer. Crisp writing packed full of information.

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Human beings take shelter from hurricanes, flee tsunamis, keep their distance from tornadoes, move indoors when dust storms roll by. Wildfires, they choose to fight. They feel a certain familiarity with fire, have a sense they can control it. Fire burns in campfires and fireplaces, flames on stove tops, flickers from candles that light up the darkness, a warming and comforting presence. It provides nutrition. It sparks romance. It protects. (142)

This is one of three books I've read about the Yarnell Hill fire to date, and it offers really solid coverage of the event. It's partly about the events (what happened? Why? Who were the players?) and partly about the context surrounding the fire, and surrounding the firefighters' work.

The fire itself is worth reading about, but so are points like this: Rookies such as Woyjeck, McKee, and Warneke, the third Marine Corps veteran on the crew, made $12.09 an hour—no health insurance, no paid holidays, no paid sick leave. They were among the fourteen crew members hired for the fire season and dismissed just in time to exempt its employer, the City of Prescott, from covering benefits legally required for full-time employees; roughly three out of five Hotshots in the United States work under similar rules during any given fire season (23).

Think about that for a moment. These were people who literally put their lives at risk as a daily part of their job—which for them often involved working to save structures, not lives—and who, if they'd been injured in the fire rather than killed, would have had recourse for medical bills, time off work, et cetera. Many of them had families, including young children, who weren't eligible for the benefits that families of deceased full-time employees would have gotten. (Can you imagine any politician who would stand by these rules being willing to give up his own medical insurance and paid holidays?)

Nineteen people—that's too many to get a full picture of each in one book, but this is good for an overall picture. What a terrible loss.

[Laura Hiebenthal · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting to think about the book-movie relationship: is it better to read the book first and then watch the movie, or vice versa? Generally, I would say to read the book first. However, in this case, I saw the movie "Only the Brave" and that led me to this book. I wonder if my reaction to the book would be much different if I had not already seen the movie.

Regardless, Fernanda Santos does a nice job recounting the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots at the Yarnell Fire in 2013. There are a lot of people/names in this story and it is easy to get lost with who is who, yet Santos did a good job of helping the reader keep everyone straight. She tells the story in chronological order, which is easy to follow. Even though I knew the outcome, it still gave me chills to read the last radio transmissions from the Hotshots before they deployed and tragically died.

There is not much mention of the lone survivor, Brendan McDonough, in this book, but I believe I saw that McDonough has since written his own book about the Yarnell Fire. I look forward to reading it and comparing it with this account.

The thing I appreciated the most was that Santos did not point fingers. When I picked the book up, I was afraid the author would pick apart the disaster with who did (or didn't do) what and start placing blame on certain people. It's not our place to judge. Certainly, Santos points out that there was confusion and that there were concerns about how this tragedy came to happen, which seems reasonable, but she focuses on the loss of these 19 young men and honoring their lives. I appreciated that very much.

[Terry Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got my order in for this book, because I'm a fan of Fernanda Santos and I know she won't disappoint.
I know she won't disappoint for two reasons.
1. I have long read her reportage on Arizona and New Mexico in the New York Times. I know these states pretty well, and frankly much of the coverage by out-of-state newspapers is pretty ho-hum, shallow and renders the characters into cardboard stereotypes. But not Santos. She takes the time to immerse herself in a place, or in a person's soul, or in the halls of a legislature, then tells the truth crystal clear. Her characters are real, conflicted and counterintuitive.
2. I witnessed the writing of this book, since Santos had an office right across the hallway from my office in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, and let me tell you, this woman poured her heart and soul into this book. For months and months she toiled and struggled. She wrestled and wept. She gave it her all.
And that means we're all in for a fiercely human book.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I were a family member of one of these firefighters who lost their lives, I would cherish this book. It got a little bogged down with firefighting jargon and description but it was still very interesting to read the techniques they use to try to redirect and extinguish and control these wildfires. Mainly, I was interested in the human element and to read about the camaraderie of the firefighters and the way families supported each other, etc. In that sense, the book was great and gave a glimpse into the personal life of each firefighter. I have a greater sense of appreciation and deep respect for all the men and women who stand between us and wildfires every year. The physical tax required is more than I understood and am grateful for the eye opening read.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fire Line is a journalistic account of the deadliest day in firefighting since 9/11/01. I learned a lot about firefighting from this book. The hotshots are called upon to fight special, large fires. Those wildfires that seemingly burn out of control? The hotshots will be on the scene. I got the impression that there is some risk to the job, but the fire that took the lives of 19 men swept through the area so rapidly that there was nothing they could do to contain it. Instead, they deployed their fireproof tents, took shelter in them, and perished from the extreme heat of the fire.

This is a very personal account of the men who died that day and the families that they left behind.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a friend.

Fernanda Santos took this heartbreaking true life event and personalized it by showing us who these brave Firefighters were in their everyday lives. She interviewed hundreds of people to get the details on their families, their histories, what they liked to eat, where they hung out, what they did during their off time and how they spent their last night with their loved ones. In haunting detail, she told how they came to be Hotshots and why it was so important to them to do such a physically and mentally challenging job to the best of their abilities.
They are American heroes.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually did not like the way this book was written. It jumped around a lot and did not flow well. And for someone who is not a hotshot or involved in wildfire emergencies, the book went in to a lot of details that a layperson like me got lost in. It also glossed over the actual event that ended the lives of the Hotshots so tragically. All in all, a useful book to get more information about the incident, but not much else.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly well-researched book about a tragic event. I heard Ms Santos at her TedX Talk here in Tucson earlier in the year and have had this book on hold at the local library for months now.

Definitely recommend this one if you are interested in a more in-depth telling of the deaths of the Granite Mountain Hotshots on Sunday afternoon of June 30, 2013.

[Debbie Pearson cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is well written and captures all the personalities of the firefighters and their families. The author builds the history of the Hotshots and then describes all the ways that the Yarnell Fire became something no one could have imagined. I was drawn in to the events and felt grief and loss along with the families, communities, and the country itself. Such a great loss of life.

[Amelia Stastney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful!

[Judd Street · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots" is the third and final of my read-through of the books about the Yarnell Hill tragedy. It is closer to On the Burning Edge than survivor McDonough's autobiographical account, Granite Mountain, in that it attempts to obtain a broader vantage of the fire as a whole. Yet, unfortunately, it still falls victim to an underlying desire to memorialize and honour the fire-fighters involved, and a lack of engagement with the central questions of this tragedy: why did it happen, and how can we prevent it from happening again?

Compared to On the Burning Edge, this book involves less recounting of the crew's experiences leading up to the Yarnell fire, and instead balances the book with more pages devoted to the mourning process after the fire. I was hoping, seeing how many pages were left, that it meant much of those pages were going to be dedicated to the investigation... but instead, the book takes on a particularly "remember our fallen heroes" tone for the last forty pages or so.

There are hints that the book might dive into explanatory factors as Santos drips in a few remarks here and there about crew culture. Early on, for instance, she notes how different the hiring process was at Granite Mountain than in other hotshot crews, and the way that it was really very centralized and driven by one man's perspectives (Eric Marsh, the crew chief who ultimately led the firefighters out of their safe zone) (see p. 17-18). We also get a great vignette (p. 72) from the Wesley fire earlier in the season, where Marsh refused an assignment he thought was unsafe, and

"The Granite Mountain Hotshots paid the price: they left that fire with a bad evaluation. A supervisor blamed the crew for the division's failure to meet its objectives for the day. Marsh was furious. The evaluation seemed like a reprisal for judiciously saying no. There weren't exactly any consequences, but Marsh didn't like having it on his record, especially because he didn't agree that it was fair."

We also are reminded of the way that the Granite Mountain hotshots spent virtually the whole day leading up to the tragedy with only one "clear task" and with Marsh in a weird leadership role, outside of the hotshots but really only commanding them (p. 122). And, like in the other two books, we're routinely confronted with examples where assumptions (e.g., around fire spread rate on p. 145, around Marsh's judgement, etc) lead to an unwillingness to adopt a more conservative approach or question leadership.

(In the last 30 pages, there's also a brief reference to an interesting chapter of the story, which is the government's endeavour to avoid compensation for several of the firefighters on the basis of their employment status. Some families choose to fight, while others accept, but it's an interesting layer not really mentioned in the other books.)

But, despite dangling all these subtle clues, Santos just doesn't engage at all with the question at the heart of it all. Yet again, Granite Mountain is largely portrayed through the lens of an inevitable tragedy; a permanent feature of firefighting; an event that cannot really be interrogated; and with one allowable lens for telling the story: that of affection for the heroes.

Obviously, these 19 firefighters do deserve our appreciation and respect for their heroic work. But, at the same time, it's my belief that their deaths are for naught if we fail to learn from them. Confronting tragedy means confronting uncomfortable questions about what caused it, and sometimes that means owning up to the fact that dead heroes made bad calls and trying to forensically analyze why they did that.

It's a real shame that all three books currently available about Granite Mountain fail to engage with that central question and important contribution. Was it the rush to publish in a competitive landscape with many books? An overarching commitment to the hero narrative? Emotional connection after working so closely with the families to learn the stories?

In any event, there is a huge story still waiting to be told, a decade later. There are investigations and there's now temporal distance. I hope someone will take up the challenge.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers know how this story is going to end - 19 firefighters lost their lives in the Yarnell Fire - one of the deadliest fires in history. What author Fernanda Santos does is show us who these men were and how the disaster came to be. Her research was meticulous and detailed, but never boring. Facts are presented as needed to offer insights into the actions of the fire and the men. The anecdotes and personal stories of the men help us to understand their motivations and dedication.
I didn't know any of the firefighters, but often a man's character is reflected in the opinions and actions of their friends and community. I worked in Prescott the summer of 2013, and learned firsthand how much the residents of Prescott appreciated the Granite Mountain Hotshots, especially as they saved the outlying areas from the Doce fire. Businesses and homes throughout the community displayed thank you signs and tributes to their new heroes.
My family and I drove through an area that had been burned over in the Doce fire. We said what a shame it was that such a large area had been destroyed, but what great job the firefighters had done in protecting homes and their community. We noticed another fire had started and commented on its towering smoke plume, never imagining that the next day nearly all of the Granite Mountain Hotshots would lose their lives to it.
Prescott was in shock, first from the threat of the Doce fire, and then at the hard-to-comprehend fatalities of their heroes - their friends and neighbors. Firefighters across the country were also shocked and did what little they could in the aftermath. At the memorial ceremony, firetrucks with license plates from across the West could be seen in the parking lot, as representatives of many hotshot teams came to pay tribute. The ceremony and speeches were moving, but what sent shivers down my spine was the sound of the bell as it tolled 19 times, once for each of the firefighters.
Through this book, I was able to appreciate even more the fine character of the men that were lost.

[Jessica Tate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was hard to get through, especially because it is true. I knew about this fire happening back in June 2013 but I really got curious about it after going to see "Only The Brave" that is out in theaters right now. After seeing the movie, I immediately starting searching for books about the Granite Mountain Hotshots - I wanted to learn more about them and to see how accurate the movie actually was.

In The Fire Line, Fernanda Santos maps out the crew's story, starting with telling a little bit about each of the guys, following along until that fateful day that killed 19 of the 20 men on the crew. It is apparent that Santos does her research - she interviewed families, talked to those in Prescott, AZ associated with the hotshot crew, and did a good job of informing the reader about what really happened leading up to their deaths, as well as some information on the families after the funerals.

It is a tough read - the writing is good, the facts are present, but it is heart wrenching to think about what these men went through. According to the book, the fire got up to 2,000 degrees. The men deployed in their fire blankets but a heat that strong will kill anything in its path. Just thinking about what the men went through the final minutes of their lives is terrifying and sad. My heart goes out to each of them, as well as their families and friends left to mourn them.

I've always admired firefighters - this book will make you grow admiration for them too. Tip your hat to one the next time you see them, or even saying a kind, "thank you" will go a long way.

Excellent book - hard to read but I'm glad to learn more about these true heroes.

[Craig Beam · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a bolt of lightning ignited a hilltop in the sleepy town of Yarnell, Arizona, in June 2013, it set off a blaze that would grow into one of the deadliest fires in American history. The 20 men who made up the Granite Mountain Hotshots heard the call and sprang into action.

The Fire Line is the story of an elite crew trained to combat the wildfires that scorched 4 million acres of wild lands in the United States that year. The men of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a ragtag family, wherever the fires took them. Loyal and hardworking, they were dedicated to the tough job they had. Eric Marsh, their demanding superintendent, who turned his own personal demons into lessons he used to train and guide the crew; Jesse Steed, their captain, a former Marine, a beast on the Fire line who wasn’t afraid to say “I love you,” to the firemen he led ; Andrew Ashcroft, a team leader who struggled to balance his love for his beautiful wife and four children with his passion for fighting fires. The Fire Line is a stirring portrait of this band of brothers at work and at play, until a fire that burned in their own backyards becomes a national tragedy. Their desperate battle to control inferno, led, ultimately, to the greatest loss of firefighters lives since 9/11.

With impeccable research that draws upon more than a hundred hours of interviews with the firefighter’s families, colleagues, and state and federal officials, New York Times Phoenix Bureau Chief Fernanda Santos has written a riveting, pulse-pounding narrative of an unthinkable disaster, a remarkable group of men, and the raging wildfires that threaten our country’s treasured wild lands.