Firefighting and Romance Lead to Alaska Spark

Donnell June 26, 2020 4 Comments

LoLo Paige is the pseudonym of an author friend with a brand new release. The unpublished version took the writing contest circuit by storm. Alaska Spark is her debut release, and I’m pleased to introduce you to LoLo today. ~ Donnell

By LoLo Paige

Author LoLo Paige

It is officially summer up here North of 60 degrees parallel in Alaska, which means a couple of things. First, we have all night daylight, which is more like twilight that spurs new growth in our spruce, birch, and willow. Second, it is warm! And third, well the warmth means it is wildfire season. A land mass of 663,268 square miles equates to a lot of action with lightning-caused wildfires, as it does all around the American West.

Last summer the smoke was so dense in Southcentral Alaska, no one could open their windows in our 90-degree heat and Alaskans overran Costco, desperate for fans to stay cool. 90 degrees was rare for our maritime climate down here in the banana belt of Eagle River.

Growing up in western Montana, it was the same. In Missoula, more people worked for the U.S. Forest Service than any other employer in the 1970s. I made my rounds of all of the Forest Service offices, working for the LoLo National Forest (my sister told me I was named after this forest and I grew up believing it) and the Missoula Technology and Development Center, where wildland firefighting innovations are developed. The fire shelters each wildland firefighter carries was developed and refined at the MTDC, along with other equipment used to fight wildfires.

Many women face this in I worked for the Missoula Ranger District as a forestry technician and later worked on a Ninemile Ranger District handline fire crew. But the Smokejumper Base was the most action-packed place to work in the summer. Jumpers came from all over to do refresher training and new recruits hoping to become a “Zulie” went through rigorous training to jump out of perfectly good planes to fight fires. I had the honor and good fortune to meet Deanne Shulman, the first woman smokejumper in the U.S. Read about her historic Breaking Barriers at 1,500 Feet here: https://bit.ly/3eHzPc0

As a forestry major at the University of Montana, fire ecology was part of my program, and I was drawn into firefighting as a seasonal with the Forest Service. Most of the summer jobs back in the 1970s and 80s were filled with college kids like me from the forestry and natural resource degree programs in universities around the western states mostly.

When fires happen you are dispatched with your fire crew when requests are made for resources. Most fires are small and require less staff, but in recent years with the hotter, drier summers, fires have quickly grown to massive proportions, as we’ve seen in California, Washington, Montana and other states in the arid West.

Back in the 1980s, Alaska promised adventure. I moved North to work for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The fire program in Fairbanks was legendary and back then it was the BLM Alaska Fire Service that handled most of the fire suppression north of Fairbanks. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources handled the southern half of the state. Agency structure and reorganization through the years evolved into what is known today as the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, or AICC. It consists of the BLM, Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Alaska Department of Natural Resources. Each of these agencies has oversight of land jurisdiction and it makes sense to consolidate agency resources to fight fires in Alaska.

Part of our fire training was to work with public outreach to educate homeowners on the urban-rural fire interface, where outlying neighborhoods and subdivisions border wildlands. We made sure homeowners understood the importance of defensible space around their homes, areas largely devoid of vegetation. The National Fire Protection Association has specific actions to take to prepare homes for protection against wildfires. More information on this can be found at https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Wildfire/Preparing-homes-for-wildfire

The most important action is to remove all trees and vegetation within the Immediate and Intermediate Zones, the areas closest to the house at least thirty feet away. When fires reach trees and crown from tree to tree, rooftops can ignite if the trees are too close. Another no-no is never stack firewood next to a building.

In the novel I’ve recently released about wildland firefighting, Alaska Spark, I write about what happens when these things have not been done and where inaction can lead. And because it’s fiction I raised the stakes high for homeowners and firefighters in the book.

The story is a romantic suspense about the dynamic of working in a stressful environment with men and women in a firefighting environment. When I fought fire, I was fortunate to have good leadership and crew bosses who knew fire behavior and always kept safety a priority. I enjoyed the give and take between everyone on a crew, regardless of gender. I worked on a crew where most of us were mature and several of us were married and everyone respected each other’s boundaries.

Everyone has to work to pass the fitness tests. When I worked fire in the 1970s and 80s, we had to pass a Step Test. The 3-Minute Step Test measures aerobic (cardiovascular) fitness level based on how quickly the heart rate returns to normal after exercise. The goal is to step on and off the bench for 3 minutes while keeping a consistent pace to see how quickly the heart rate reduces afterwards. Now physical fitness for fire is measured in another way.

The Work Capacity Test, known informally as the pack test, is a U.S. Forest Service physical test for wildland firefighters. The pack test is intentionally stressful as it tests the capacity of muscular strength and aerobic endurance of the firefighter. Pack tests are split into three tests to measure activity levels of arduous, moderate, and light. It consists of a 3-mile walk with a 45-pound pack over level terrain. I include this in the novel.

As a female, it was always a challenge to prove I could do the physical aspects of the job that used to be traditionally done by males. Sometimes I worked with old-school thinkers who thought women had no place on a fire line. I worked hard to prove myself, as seeing is believing. Most came around, but there always seemed to be one who remained stubborn. I write about this in the novel too. Many women face this in male-dominated professions. But now, women make up a healthy portion of fire crews. An all-woman fire crew from Montana came up to Alaska last summer to fight fires.

Looking back, those firefighting jobs made me grow up. I quickly learned that not only did I have the responsibility to watch out for my own safety on the fire line, I had to watch out for each of my crew members. We learned to trust each other; without trust it’s difficult for a crew to congeal and work successfully as a team. Everyone proves their capability on the fire line and gender fades once trust is established. Firefighting was one of the most exhilarating work experiences of my life for all kinds of reasons.

Anyone who is interested in seasonal work or careers in wildland fire can check out this resource at the U.S. Forest Service website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/working-with-us/jobs/fire

Both Forest Service and BLM offer careers in Fire and Aviation. Here’s the BLM website https://www.blm.gov/programs/public-safety-and-fire/fire-and-aviation/careers

When I set out to write a novel I wanted to write about heroes. Back in 2015, the first freelance article I published with The Anchorage Press, was about a close call our crew had fighting a fire in Alaska’s Interior. https://www.anchoragepress.com/news/embers-of-memories/article_bcd3c7bd-36f8-5859-839b-97d3dde7a52a.html

The story won an Alaska Press Club award for best history, all media the following year. A judge suggested I write a novel based on this story. So I did and Alaska Spark released on the last day of May.

I love writing about the grit and determination required to be a firefighter. And a love for our wildlands and to protect the homes that border them. As our Alaska fire season progresses, I cross my fingers that everyone will be okay, and no more homes will be lost to future fires as we experienced last year and other years. Behind the firefighting efforts are people like Whitney, Martin, and Rego in my Embers of Memories story–and firefighting retardant planes like Jaws.

They will always be my heroes.

About Alaska Spark: Romance, sabotage, and fire are an explosive mix. This smoking hot, action-packed romantic suspense will keep you turning pages long into the night.

Reeling from a broken heart, the last thing Tara wants is a new man. Fighting fires is simpler. But when a fire victim dies on her watch and she’s reassigned to Alaska, she accepts it even though her dreams fall out of reach.

Ryan is a sexy firefighter with big plans for the future, but he has his own demons. He soothes his guilt by always putting himself in harm’s way. When Ryan finds Tara in his refresher fire training class, sparks fly and he wants to help her with her own guilt. But she’s decided no more mixing romance with fire–she always gets burned.

Ryan has a plan to break down her walls, but before long they have bigger problems. Someone on the fire crew is sabotaging Tara at every turn.

If the two of them can’t uncover the villain then their budding romance could be extinguished before it even has a chance to heat up.

About the Author: LoLo Paige holds a master’s degree in Environmental Science from Alaska Pacific University. She has decades of stage and film acting experience and has appeared as an extra in scenes with Nicolas Cage, John Krasinski, Dermot Mulroney, and Jon Voight. This led to screenwriting and her screenplay, Evacuation, about a runaway blaze in Alaska won 4th place in the 2018 L.A. Independent Film Festival. LoLo lives in Alaska with her husband and golden retriever, enjoying summers at their oceanfront cabin, fishing for halibut and salmon…and writing! She’s working on Books 2 and 3 of her Blazing Hearts Wildfire Series. She is also launching another romantic suspense series, crime thrillers involving the popular Alaska State Troopers.

ALASKA SPARK is now available as an e-book and paperback on Barnes and Noble and on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3beo8rv