Wildfire Days - by Kelly Ramsey (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In the exhilarating spirit of Wild and A Walk in the Park, an adventure-filled memoir of one woman's struggle to succeed as a wildland firefighter on an elite, male-dominated crew as they battle some of the fiercest wildfires in the West.

When Kelly Ramsey drives over a California mountain pass to join an elite firefighting crew, she's terrified that she won't be able to keep up with the intense demands of the job. Not only will she be the only woman on this hotshot crew and their first in ten years, she'll also be among the oldest. As she trains relentlessly to overcome the crew's skepticism and gain their respect, megafires erupt across the West, posing an increasing danger both on the job and back home. In vivid prose that evokes the majesty of Northern California's forests, Kelly takes us on the ground to see how major wildfires are fought and to lay bare the psychological toll, the bone-deep weariness, and the unbreakable camaraderie that emerge in the face of nature's fury.

Despite the wear and tear of her rookie year in fire, Kelly gears up for a second season, determined to prove that not only can a woman survive this work, she can excel. But when her plans to marry her partner start to crumble and sparks fly with a fellow crew member, Kelly wrestles with whether she's truly outgrown the self-destructive patterns she's learned from her father, whose drinking and itinerant ways haunt her. And as the season wears on, she discovers how tenuous "belonging" can be amid ever-changing crew dynamics.

In this vivid, visceral, and intimate memoir, Kelly wrestles with the immense power of fire for both destruction and renewal, confronted with the questions: Which fires do you fight, and which do you let burn you clean?

Review Quotes

"Well-written and compelling, I read it cover to cover. Kelly Ramsey is that great combination of a badass and a great writer that we all strive for. I was on several huge Western fires as a young journalist, and Ramsey's descriptions of the sheer herculean effort required by these young people is spot-on. The only other people I've seen work this hard are combat infantry. She describes a riveting and wildly dangerous world that many readers will find irresistible." --Sebastian Junger, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tribe

"Start looking, and fire is connected to everything in a landscape. But fire is also a relationship and that, as Kelly Ramsey dramatizes, can be connected to everything in a life. A lively after-action report from the swelling literature of young women and fire." --Stephen J. Pyne, author of The Pyrocene

"Nobody has captured the violent dualities of wildfire, its destruction, and its visceral, almost inexplicable allure quite like Kelly Ramsey has in Wildfire Days. Her words will transport you to the hottest, smokiest, dustiest edges of some of the biggest wildfires in recent years, providing an intimate look at the devastation not only of wildfire, but of witnessing the places and people you love change before your eyes. This book is a captivating, detailed exploration of the culture of fighting fire in the American West, but beyond that it is a truly masterful rumination on growing and learning amidst--and in spite of--the scorched earth around us. I was left in awe." --Amanda Monthei, former wildland firefighter and host of Life with Fire podcast

About the Author

Kelly Ramsey was born in Frankfort, Kentucky. She studied poetry at the University of Virginia and fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She cofounded The Lighthouse Works, an artists' residency program, and later moved to Northern California, where she worked for the US Forest Service as a trail maintenance worker, wilderness ranger, and wildland firefighter. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Sierra, Electric Literature, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger. She lives in Redding, California, with her partner and their dog, Rookie.