We took lunch at this helispot/deployment zone that we had worked toward throughout the morning, thinking we would tie-in with the other advancing Shot Crew. At around 14:30 hrs grey smoke started to drift across our lines below and above.

The Gila Hotshots superintendent comes hammering down the fireline down saying “We had a slopover and are getting to many spots to hold what we have up top, we’re gonna be pulling out”. Our Foreman made the quick decision to recon toward where we anchored. He came back up the hill he said, “It doesn’t look good but I found some good black for us to get to, so saddle up ladies we gotta double time”.

We were setting a pretty fast pace, running with line-gear and a chainsaw (about 75 lbs) The fire was starting to make heavy runs downhill, right down the drainages where we were headed. The second saw teams swamper which was a fill-in and had limited experience with wildland gigs, much less working with a Shot Crew. He was so frightened. While we where at top speed, he went down, tripped or something, and just kept up the same speed on his knees. I grabbed the top strap on his pack and pulled him back to his feet. As that happened, we looked back and saw the fire making a heavy charge, trying to cut us off from our safety zone.

As I looked back all I could see was this smoke, just a really large dark grey and black smoke column. I thought for sure I was gonna have use my shelter. When you’re that close to big fire it sounds like a jet. We made it to the other side, to the BLACK and it was moonscape.