Reader’s Digest
134 september 2019
photo,previousspread:^ courtesy^ lupitafranco/caltrans^ district2In three decades of firefighting,
Andrews, 60, had witnessed plenty
of close calls. More than once, when
flames burnt over his rig, he’d sum-
moned helicopters or planes to cover
him with water or pink retardant.
But on this day, 26 July 2018, he
wasn’t supposed to be this close to the
edge. He’d been hired by the Califor-
nia Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection (Cal Fire) to carve a thick
ring of dirt around a subdivision of
homes at the Carr Fire in Shasta
County. It was a fairly routine contract
assignment. The containment lines
were three dozer blades wide and
designed to halt the advance of the
wildfire, which was still miles away.
What Andrews didn’t know was
that the Carr Fire—to that point
a dangerous but rather ordinary
California inferno—was about to
spawn something monstrous: a fire
tornado the likes of which the state
had never seen.
The vortex of air ripped around a
column of rising heat, flames lickingD
eath blew east on a savage wind, driving flames over
foothills and across a river, spitting glowing embers
and scrubbing the earth bare. It was coming for Don
Andrews. His bulldozer’s windows shattered, flinging
glass into his face. The blue-green shards were everywhere:
on the floor, inside his helmet, in his skin and eyes. He was alone
and blinded. The firestorm shook the ground and roared as loud
as a passing train. I’m not going to survive this, he thought.its walls. A freak of meteorolog y, it
would annihilate everything in its
path, uprooting trees and crumpling
electrical towers.
Andrews hunkered down. He
gripped the dozer’s protective foil
curtains closed with his left hand
to keep the wind from batting them
open. With his right hand, he pulled
his shirt over his nose and mouth.
The heat seared his throat.
Temperatures within the tornado
soared to nearly 1500ºC. A nearby Cal
Fire truck exploded. Andrews dialled
911 to call in an emergency. His singed
hands trembled.
A dispatcher answered, on the
verge of tears. Dozens of others had
phoned in already, describing the
unfolding hell. Now, here was a call
from ground zero.
“I don’t know how long I can
last,” Andrews told her. “I need to
get out of here.”
“If you can, get out safely, OK?”
“I can’t. It’s all on fire around me.
Don’t risk anybody’s life for mine.”