The snow that blanketed the mountains of southwest Colorado began its annual migration up the slopes, into the shadows, and out of sight. Rivers swelled, branches sprouted new buds, and insects emerged from hiding to dance among blossoming alpine flowers. Spring had arrived, and with it, the start of my first season in wildland fire.

Fresh from the conservation corps, I joined the Feds, eager yet inexperienced. I was a self-described nomadic adrenaline junkie; home was my Mazda 6 sedan, and everything I cared about owning could fit inside it. The previous summer, I had read a book about smokejumpers, and though I didn't yet know what a snag or a Mark 3 pump were, I knew I wanted to “slay the dragon, ” as I had heard it called.

I romanticized dreams of big fires, towering trees, and narrow escapes. But the reality that followed was far from these initial illusions.

I quickly learned what it meant to mop up. District orientations and project work thrived, while the smell of smoke in the forest remained elusive. The first large fire I was ever on appeared as nothing more than a glow in the distance. It was after dark when our module checked into fire camp, and the orange radiance from the far-off fire seemed to light up half the horizon. We spent the next ten days prepping contingency lines miles from the black edge. We worked nearly two weeks on a fire I never saw.

The constant theme of those first years was to absorb as much knowledge as possible. Never touch the handrails at fire camp. Gloves should never be hung from your belt. Ego and chainsaws are a volatile combination. You know less than you think you know. If you want to look like a bagger, you will succeed.

I had crossed into a new world, one full of foreign words, intense demands, and countless lessons—many of which came from my first supervisor, mentor, and now close friend. He had spent twelve years on a hotshot crew and was then the same age I am now. When I asked him how he kept returning year after year, he used to say, “Three days."

The job is full suck, he said, but for three days every summer, you'll find yourself in a wild that few experience, doing a job that few witness, surrounded by people few could ever aspire to be.

The hook was set, and I was like a child in a candy store. Every flavor, every feature of fire was new and exciting, and I wanted to try them all. I had tasted just a few hours of those delectable three days and wanted nothing more than more.

But too soon, the snow melted. The mountains turned into black hills, and the days stretched until they would surely rip. The dog days of summer, and of my journey, were in motion.

It didn't take long to see every state in the west from the back of a hotshot buggy. When these days were good, they were great. Big burn shows, closing down divisions, the sound of two hotshot crews tying into one another. The full soul feeling of sweating and bleeding alongside your crew members, two chains away from going Tango Uniform. A body of twenty hearts, beating for the same cause.

When these days were bad, I was reminded of what it feels like to have your soul bleed. As an emotional armor, I learned to protect hope. Our bodies can endure immense pain if we don't view it as suffering and we keep a flicker of hope alive. And then, just when you're on the brink of R&R with your significant other, who you haven't seen in over a month—her flight booked, the hotel reserved, and the "I can't wait to see you!" texts sent—your buggy breaks down in Nowhere, Idaho. In that moment, you had either protected yourself from hoping or were hurt doubly when the plans fell apart.

As individuals, we were as unrecognizable as a breath, but just as vital. Occasionally, we would hear stories of families returning to their homes after a fire passed through. They'd drive up their driveway, lined with blackened death, unable to believe their house still stood. They thanked their God. Yet before the house was spared, there was a space where a hotshot had stood, between the God that is Nature and the God that is Big Ernie. Only a hotshot crew can act with the force of divine intervention, yet remain unseen by the public.

There was a pause before the first sign of fall. I took a season off because I didn't like who I was becoming. But looking back at that summer of freedom, I realized I didn't like who I had lost.

Fire and my identity had become too intertwined to exist independently.

A return to the West, a "come to autumn, " where all the leaves turn gold. The year, and my journey in fire, now feel old. As the leaves began to fall, I found myself falling out of planes.

Hotshotting was the hardest job I've ever had. Rookie training for smokejumping was the hardest thing I've ever gone through. It was a rare opportunity to experience new levels and varieties of stress. Anyone who makes it through the program learns the edge of their limits.

The strength of a crew lies in how they act as one unit. The strength of jumpers comes from the actions of the individual. So often, there are so few jumpers on a fire that everyone plays multiple roles. The responsibilities are more real, and high-level leadership is expected, indiscriminately, from all.

The years of autumn fall away in settled cycles. Prepare, perform, recover—season into season. For now, and for the observable future, I have no reason to change course.

But one day, the last of the leaves will drift to the ground, and the winds of winter will settle in. The next leg of this voyage will present itself, and I will either go up in GS or out of fire.

I've been at this for nearly a decade now. This is no longer just a summer job; it's what I choose to devote the majority of my time to. The void left by my initial illusion of fire has been filled with wisdom. I know enough to know I know very little. But my repertoire of fire stories and close calls keeps expanding. I've seen friends retire, get fired, and die. I've felt and seen the good and the bad this career can offer—and I remain optimistic.

One day, I won't be the one walking through the woods with a Pulaski and a plan. That will be the responsibility of those more eager and inexperienced than me. And they then, like me now, will care deeply for the woods and the seasons that flow through them.