Burning Bright
Kelly Ramsey Chronicles Firefighting Years in Debut Book…
The answer to Kelly Ramsey’s mid-30s employment conundrum came in the form of an ad for a volunteer position on public lands in Happy Camp. It promised an opportunity to gain skills needed to land a job with the Forest Service and free housing in government barracks. The fact that she didn’t have any relevant outdoor experience at the time didn’t matter.
Ramsey, born in Kentucky and raised there and Pennsylvania, was living in Austin, Texas at the time. When she landed in Happy Camp in 2018 for her place on a summer trail crew, she found the “hearty frontiersman energy” she was looking for. She also found the path to her dream positions in the outdoors and the impetus to write the book she knew was in her, but had never been able to quite put together. By the time she arrived in Happy Camp, the English Literature major says, she had “all but given up on writing.”
The journey is laid out in her memoir, “Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew and the Burning of the American West,” published in June this year by Scribner, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Built from more than 50,000 words taken in her phone’s Notes app during the fires, the book tells of her experience going from volunteer trail crew member to a wilderness ranger to the lone woman on a 20-member hotshot crew fighting some of the most intense wildfires in history for two years, including the August Complex, the first million-acre fire in California history. She also fought a devastating fire in Happy Camp, which challenged her adopted community with tragic outcomes.
“I got lucky and had a great crew that was relatively respectful,” says Ramsey. “It was incredibly empowering to be able to fight and find my place and show my strength.” Not only was she the only woman on her crew, but she was also one of the oldest, entering the hotshot crew in her late 30s with only the experience she’d gained in the previous few years. She committed herself to a rigorous personal training regime to find success on the crew.
Layered within the stories of wilderness adventure and wildfire are self-reflections of a personal life with a severely alcoholic father who slips into homelessness and the search for a chosen family in the camaraderie of her crew. The challenges were many to find her place among the men, but she ultimately earned their respect and held her own on the team. Hotshot crews are a special forces of sorts, with particularly intense physical requirements.
Ash Davidson, author of “Damnation Spring,” reviewed the book as, “A frank, funny, fast-paced and heartfelt portrait of the grueling work of wildland firefighting and the people who love it, and a deeply moving account of what it means to love someone consumed by the flames of addiction without being sucked into the fire yourself.”
Today, Ramsey resides in Redding with her partner, a smokejumper with the Forest Service, and their young daughter. She is an editor and writing coach busy with the responsibilities of promoting the book she has worked so hard to develop. “Having a book come out is actually a full-time job,” she says, noting a tour that will include the Sisters Festival of Books in Sisters, Ore., in September, several bookstore appearances and 20 to 30 radio and podcast interviews.
The experience has rekindled her desire to write. While she majored in English Literature as an undergrad and earned a Masters in Fine Arts in fiction writing, she says it was “only when I gave up and finally found something else I loved” that she was able to put together her book.
“I loved working for the Forest Service, being outside, the camaraderie,” she says, adding that it was “and incredible, transformative experience fighting fire.” The whole while she took notes, enough to jog her memory for the book.
As she works to give Wildfire Days the promotion it deserves, she’s contemplating a future work of fiction, perhaps centered on water in the West. “Being a ranger was one of the best jobs I ever had,” she says. Thankfully, others can get a peek into that life, and so much more, with her talents as a writer. •
www.kellylynnramsey.com
