I grew up in Denver, Colorado and am a graduate of Brown University and Columbia Law School. I retired from Wall Street and spent five years as a masters bicycle racer. Moved to Malibu 5 years ago with my wife, three dogs, two parrots, a 21-year-old cat, and an aging race horse.
The first thing you realize about Malibu, after its beauty, is the fire danger. Every year Malibu has fires. Every 5 years, Malibu has devastating fires. In October and November 2007, we had two terrible fires which destroyed 60 homes. The October fire was driven by 60 mph winds. It literally burned to my front door. My closest neighbor lost his house and a church nearby was destroyed. I saved my house as a result of the firefighting techniques I learned while writing my book.
Malibu is full of fire stations and fire camps. Camp 13, a female inmate camp trains women to work on wildland fires. Camp 8, is a helitak camp, where crews train to fight fires using modified Blackhawk helicopters. One day when I was riding my bike home, I passed Pepperdine University and saw an LA County Fire helicopter on the lawn, with several firefighters standing around it. I wondered what their lives were like and thought I would write a book about it.
I have been fortunate to have access to all the fire stations, camps and training academies of LA County as well as CalFire. My book tells the story of a boy from Michigan who is forced out of his home by an abusive father. He comes to California and becomes a firefighter. His role model and mentor is killed in a wildfire burnover. He struggles to cope with his father's influence on his life and the loss of his mentor. While the book is complete fiction, it is based on real situations and people involved in firefighting in California. One foot in the black is a wildland firefighter's phrase. It refers to a position on the fireline, which is next to an area already burned ("the black"). It is at once the most dangerous place, usually close to the flames, and the safest place, near a zone into which escape is possible.
I am currently working on a second novel about an arsonist, Red Flag Warning (More information at http://www.kurtkamm.com)
Buy Kurt's book at Amazon: HERE
Prologue
A year ago, I saw a man go up in flames. Our helitak crew was fighting the Pozo Fire in the Los Padres National Forest in Central California. That morning, we dropped onto a remote ridge on Black Mountain. Our job was to cut a control line along the flank of the fire burning in the valley below. We struggled to clear a three-foot wide break through thick brush on the side of the mountain.
Without warning, the wind changed direction and a firestorm with a ninety-foot wall of flames roared up the canyon at us. In a heartbeat, the oxygen was gone, hot smoke and ash filled the air, and we couldn’t breathe. Our entire crew was caught off guard.
It was every firefighter’s nightmare. The heat was staggering. The brush was an inferno. Trees weren’t burning, they were exploding. Trapped on rugged, steep terrain, we had no time to deploy our fire shelters. Our only escape was to climb back up the fireline to our safe zone. We shouted warnings, dropped tools and daypacks and clawed our way up the side of the canyon.
We had sixty seconds to escape the firestorm, which was nearly upon us. I felt the radiant heat on my neck and wrists, and I knew I would die from breathing superheated air before I burned to death. I looked back and saw TB, our Captain, for a few seconds before he disappeared behind the wall of fire. If he cried out, I couldn’t hear him. The roar of the blaze was deafening. Jake, Luis, and everyone else in the crew made it to the safe zone. TB perished.
In a state of shock and anguish, we were pulled off the fireline and airlifted back to the incident command post. We received medical treatment and were sent back to Los Angeles. Our physical injuries were minor, but each of us struggled to cope with the death of our Captain. It hit me hardest because TB was my mentor, my substitute father.
We went out on stress leave and the Los Angeles County Fire Department sent us to see their psychiatrist for a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.
Fighting a wildland fire is dangerous business and entrapment is always possible. At least once in every firefighter’s life he fights for survival and thinks the unthinkable. The Pozo Fire, one for the record books, started July 23, 2001 and burned 149,000 acres. It occurred the year after I came to California to escape a lifetime of abuse and neglect from my real father. My struggle to survive his mistreatment continued long after I recovered from the events on Black Mountain.
