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Fire in the Heart: A Memoir of Friendship, Loss, and Wildfire
Fire In The Heart is a powerful memoir by a woman, once a shy, insecure schoolgirl, who reinvented herself as a professional wildlands firefighter. Determined to forge herself into a stronger, braver person, Mary climbs to new heights for a woman in the field in the early 90s, eventually directing wildfire forces from the Florida swamp to Alaska's interior. Filled with literal struggles for survival, tough choices and Mary's burning passion for what she does, Fire in the Heart, is an unflinching account of one woman's relationship with fire. But when she loses someone she loves to the famous Storm King Mountain forest fire in Colorado, which killed fourteen firefighters, Mary faces the hardest choice of her life; to stay in the game or turn back and try to find the woman she used to be. It is both a thrilling memoir about life-threatening work and a meditation on identity, strength, bravery, bonds, and survivor's guilt.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2017
About the author
Mary Emerick
5 books18 followersNature. Wilderness. Loves writing that includes the outdoors as character and influences personality. Author of essays and three books: memoir and fiction. Alaska has my heart always. Drawn to mountains. Scariest moment: kayaking in 12 foot seas.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
September 18, 2017
Wow! That's a powerful story.
The larger-than-life characters make it an inspiring account of personal and professional transformation. Of course, there are weaker story-telling points. But then again. It's not fiction.
Q:
I couldn’t think about that tonight. Instead I kept an eye on the crew, because invariably they were doing something they should not. “Look into the green!” I yelled down the line. The rookies were making the typical mistake of staring, mesmerized, at the fire itself. It was an impressive sight as it jumped into the tops of black spruce and sizzled in the oven-dry needles. But where we really needed to be looking was in the green, unburnt section, our backs to the fire. This was where spot fires could blossom, caused by unseen sparks tossed across by wind. Firebrands, they were called, and the analysts in camp carefully concocted predictions of ignition in terms of percentages.
(c)
Q:
Years after we were gone, the scars we left would still be here—our three-foot line, snaking through the permafrost, the ground laid bare, unzipped to its core, the stumps, the tracks of dozers. I thought of all the other fires, in Florida, Wyoming, Colorado—long swathes of forest changed forever, not only by the fire but by our stopping it. The cut trees, the brush piles, the thin red line of fire retardant.
My mind wandered. How many times had I stood just like this, shivering a little bit in my thin Nomex shirt, carrying a pulaski, holding the line? There had been nights of spitting rain, huddling under flimsy space blankets. Nights curled around warm stumps, praying for the sun to poke out from the other side of the mountains. Nights spent hauling water up the line, each of us sunk in our own private misery, icy water from leaky bladder bags snaking down our backs.
There had been a hundred other nights like these, both on the fireline and on a trail, countless hungry, freezing, desperate nights that were sometimes easy to forget. When was I going to call it quits, say enough was enough? I was forty years old. Shouldn’t I have had kids, taken them to soccer practice, become another, different woman with shiny hair sweeping my cheeks at a careful angle, fingernails the color of tangerine, everything perfect, not used up, stained, broken? What kept me here, what was this thing that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go?
(c)
Q:
All of us were here because we were fascinated by fire. Some said it was for the money, a little extra to see them through the lean winters. But press each of them a little bit, and it was something other than money that kept us out here season after season. One thing was for sure: you either loved it or you hated it. There was no in between.
(c)
Q:
I had been fighting fire longer than he had been alive. He couldn’t imagine rebellious knees, unstable from years of holding the line. He didn’t know how hard it was to dig a little deeper each year to stay ahead on the hikes. He did not have the memories, polished stones tumbling around in my head: Florida to Alaska; grass, desert, and mountain; all different but all somehow the same.
(c)
Q:
The kid asked the question again, the one that I had been avoiding for ten years. “Were you at South Canyon?” he asked. “You know the one where thirteen people died?”
Fourteen, I thought. There were fourteen. “No,” I said. “I wasn’t there.”
It was true that I wasn’t there. But what was also true was that I carried that fire with me everywhere.
(c)
Q:
The fireline was just another way to run. I didn’t know if I would ever see myself the way I wanted to be. I couldn’t outrun the girl I used to be; I’d tried that already. I had not drowned her in the rivers we crossed; I had not lost her in the canyons. She would always be a part of me, like it or not.
(c)
Q:
“Watch out for burning bunnies,” Roger called. It was true: an animal, fleeing our fire, could spread flames across into the unburnt “green” side and trap us.
Sometimes the snakes, inexplicably, turned and wriggled back toward the fire and certain death. We had seen it before, an entire field covered with dead snakes. Even though none of us really liked snakes, we tried to save them with shovels, herding them out into the unburnt neighboring unit. They resisted, striking at the metal blade and slipping past us back into the heart of the fire.
(c)
Q:
“With this wind, we’ll be busier than long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs.”
(c)
Q:
In the beginning I was an accidental firefighter, pressed into service because there was a state of emergency in the Northwest. Four months earlier I had floated across the country like a dandelion seed to land at Olympic National Park for the summer. Most of my friends at home were locked in, framing their college degrees, settling into marriage and real jobs. Some of us, though, took different routes, striking out in beat-up cars long past their prime, long-haired girls with unexpressed dreams. Most of them came back home. “You’ll be back,” they said as I drove away. I was determined to beat the odds.
There had to be something more, I thought—a country I had read about in books, a country that could change a woman. When my friends came back, sometimes with a new puppy or a new man in tow, they seemed exotic and new, touched by distant mountains. After a time, though, they settled back into the familiar landscape of well-trodden paths: the bar on Saturday nights, wearing too much blue eye shadow, a dismal job at a desk, an inescapable history.
(c)
Q:
They were different people than when they left. I could see it on them. They had shrugged on confidence like a coat.
(c)
Q:
I knew I was not the type of person who had a core of steel within, the kind that forced me to keep going, no matter what. I wanted to forge that steel.
(c)
Q:
I dreamed of mountains, not men. Rivers, not babies. I didn’t know of any other girls with dreams like mine.
(c)
Q:
I ran on the farm roads for hours. I ran through ice storms, tornado warnings, subzero temperatures, in the freezing, wet, cold, lonely dark.
(c)
The larger-than-life characters make it an inspiring account of personal and professional transformation. Of course, there are weaker story-telling points. But then again. It's not fiction.
Q:
I couldn’t think about that tonight. Instead I kept an eye on the crew, because invariably they were doing something they should not. “Look into the green!” I yelled down the line. The rookies were making the typical mistake of staring, mesmerized, at the fire itself. It was an impressive sight as it jumped into the tops of black spruce and sizzled in the oven-dry needles. But where we really needed to be looking was in the green, unburnt section, our backs to the fire. This was where spot fires could blossom, caused by unseen sparks tossed across by wind. Firebrands, they were called, and the analysts in camp carefully concocted predictions of ignition in terms of percentages.
(c)
Q:
Years after we were gone, the scars we left would still be here—our three-foot line, snaking through the permafrost, the ground laid bare, unzipped to its core, the stumps, the tracks of dozers. I thought of all the other fires, in Florida, Wyoming, Colorado—long swathes of forest changed forever, not only by the fire but by our stopping it. The cut trees, the brush piles, the thin red line of fire retardant.
My mind wandered. How many times had I stood just like this, shivering a little bit in my thin Nomex shirt, carrying a pulaski, holding the line? There had been nights of spitting rain, huddling under flimsy space blankets. Nights curled around warm stumps, praying for the sun to poke out from the other side of the mountains. Nights spent hauling water up the line, each of us sunk in our own private misery, icy water from leaky bladder bags snaking down our backs.
There had been a hundred other nights like these, both on the fireline and on a trail, countless hungry, freezing, desperate nights that were sometimes easy to forget. When was I going to call it quits, say enough was enough? I was forty years old. Shouldn’t I have had kids, taken them to soccer practice, become another, different woman with shiny hair sweeping my cheeks at a careful angle, fingernails the color of tangerine, everything perfect, not used up, stained, broken? What kept me here, what was this thing that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go?
(c)
Q:
All of us were here because we were fascinated by fire. Some said it was for the money, a little extra to see them through the lean winters. But press each of them a little bit, and it was something other than money that kept us out here season after season. One thing was for sure: you either loved it or you hated it. There was no in between.
(c)
Q:
I had been fighting fire longer than he had been alive. He couldn’t imagine rebellious knees, unstable from years of holding the line. He didn’t know how hard it was to dig a little deeper each year to stay ahead on the hikes. He did not have the memories, polished stones tumbling around in my head: Florida to Alaska; grass, desert, and mountain; all different but all somehow the same.
(c)
Q:
The kid asked the question again, the one that I had been avoiding for ten years. “Were you at South Canyon?” he asked. “You know the one where thirteen people died?”
Fourteen, I thought. There were fourteen. “No,” I said. “I wasn’t there.”
It was true that I wasn’t there. But what was also true was that I carried that fire with me everywhere.
(c)
Q:
The fireline was just another way to run. I didn’t know if I would ever see myself the way I wanted to be. I couldn’t outrun the girl I used to be; I’d tried that already. I had not drowned her in the rivers we crossed; I had not lost her in the canyons. She would always be a part of me, like it or not.
(c)
Q:
“Watch out for burning bunnies,” Roger called. It was true: an animal, fleeing our fire, could spread flames across into the unburnt “green” side and trap us.
Sometimes the snakes, inexplicably, turned and wriggled back toward the fire and certain death. We had seen it before, an entire field covered with dead snakes. Even though none of us really liked snakes, we tried to save them with shovels, herding them out into the unburnt neighboring unit. They resisted, striking at the metal blade and slipping past us back into the heart of the fire.
(c)
Q:
“With this wind, we’ll be busier than long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs.”
(c)
Q:
In the beginning I was an accidental firefighter, pressed into service because there was a state of emergency in the Northwest. Four months earlier I had floated across the country like a dandelion seed to land at Olympic National Park for the summer. Most of my friends at home were locked in, framing their college degrees, settling into marriage and real jobs. Some of us, though, took different routes, striking out in beat-up cars long past their prime, long-haired girls with unexpressed dreams. Most of them came back home. “You’ll be back,” they said as I drove away. I was determined to beat the odds.
There had to be something more, I thought—a country I had read about in books, a country that could change a woman. When my friends came back, sometimes with a new puppy or a new man in tow, they seemed exotic and new, touched by distant mountains. After a time, though, they settled back into the familiar landscape of well-trodden paths: the bar on Saturday nights, wearing too much blue eye shadow, a dismal job at a desk, an inescapable history.
(c)
Q:
They were different people than when they left. I could see it on them. They had shrugged on confidence like a coat.
(c)
Q:
I knew I was not the type of person who had a core of steel within, the kind that forced me to keep going, no matter what. I wanted to forge that steel.
(c)
Q:
I dreamed of mountains, not men. Rivers, not babies. I didn’t know of any other girls with dreams like mine.
(c)
Q:
I ran on the farm roads for hours. I ran through ice storms, tornado warnings, subzero temperatures, in the freezing, wet, cold, lonely dark.
(c)
July 29, 2017
Mary Emerick writes with engaging passion about working the front line of American wildfires. Even though long and grueling days surrounded by heat, smoke, and constant danger seem like an awful line of work, her lyrical writing helped me understand her fervor for the adventurous life of a wildland firefighter. She writes from a compelling perspective — facing insecurities that are all too common among women by pursuing a career that at the time was still very much a man’s realm. As such, she had to work twice as hard to prove herself. She’s fierce but vulnerable, competitive but compassionate, and describes her own close calls without the bravado that one might expect. A tragedy forces her to reassess her priorities, with bittersweet and relatable conclusions.
September 10, 2022
On the eve of another tragic day in the fire service, my thoughts turn to the South Canyon Fire of 1994. That’s because Mary Emerick, the author of a brilliant, touching memoir called Fire in the Heart, lost her best friend in that burn over. Only the last third of her story overtly deals with this trauma, but at some level much of her story is about working with one foot in the black and one foot in the green, the fragile literal and metaphorical edge that so many people—maybe all people—walk in life. Serving as a firefighter, however, puts that you in that danger zone constantly and it’s hard to leave it behind.
Emerick’s story will stay with me because she was profoundly authentic. She shared her deep vulnerabilities, many of which resonated with me: “Both my parents saw how I turned momentary failure into a deep self-doubt. I wasn’t able to shake it off like other kids. Each missed ball, every misstep on the balance beam became a reason that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t like my schoolmates and never would be. Instead of trying, I retreated into the woods, a place that seemed to accept me for what I was, the forested backyard a calm and silent place far removed from fear. I knew I was not the type of person who had a core of steel within, the kind that forced me to keep going, no matter what. I wanted to forge that steel.” This memoir describes how she forged that steel and did so in crucibles surrounded by wildfire. Although the details differ, of course, fire did it for me, too.
But fire isn’t easy; it’s dangerous. She gracefully weaves fire science and wildfire safety into her story., and reveals how those boots-on-ground lessons influence her ethic for living: “It didn’t matter whether we were women or men. It didn’t matter whether someone waited at home for us, or whether we were too young to die. We were only fuel, our clothes and bodies and hair no different than leaves, grass, or a fallen log. It made no difference. Fire was an equalizer. If we didn’t learn on this fire, we might on the next. We all burned the same.”
I also appreciate her inclusion of gender politics. She wasn’t the first woman to work in wildfire, but as a member of the “second” generation, she still experienced plenty of discrimination and didn’t take for granted the resilience of the pioneers who entered the field previously. She also explored the politics of mediocrity that thrives in industries that wallow in tradition. Discrimination and the cult of mediocrity both contribute to the dangerous working conditions of firefighters. She witnessed both and survived both.
She also wonders when things will change: “It’s hard to believe that we still allow this to happen,” she wrote regarding the tragic Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, “men and women marching into desolate places to test themselves against fire that is not threatening anything except woods and brush. Why not let it burn, take our chances, accept that we live in a place that has always known fire?” Her’s is the voice of a witness and participant and it’s one that deserves a vast audience.
Emerick’s story will stay with me because she was profoundly authentic. She shared her deep vulnerabilities, many of which resonated with me: “Both my parents saw how I turned momentary failure into a deep self-doubt. I wasn’t able to shake it off like other kids. Each missed ball, every misstep on the balance beam became a reason that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t like my schoolmates and never would be. Instead of trying, I retreated into the woods, a place that seemed to accept me for what I was, the forested backyard a calm and silent place far removed from fear. I knew I was not the type of person who had a core of steel within, the kind that forced me to keep going, no matter what. I wanted to forge that steel.” This memoir describes how she forged that steel and did so in crucibles surrounded by wildfire. Although the details differ, of course, fire did it for me, too.
But fire isn’t easy; it’s dangerous. She gracefully weaves fire science and wildfire safety into her story., and reveals how those boots-on-ground lessons influence her ethic for living: “It didn’t matter whether we were women or men. It didn’t matter whether someone waited at home for us, or whether we were too young to die. We were only fuel, our clothes and bodies and hair no different than leaves, grass, or a fallen log. It made no difference. Fire was an equalizer. If we didn’t learn on this fire, we might on the next. We all burned the same.”
I also appreciate her inclusion of gender politics. She wasn’t the first woman to work in wildfire, but as a member of the “second” generation, she still experienced plenty of discrimination and didn’t take for granted the resilience of the pioneers who entered the field previously. She also explored the politics of mediocrity that thrives in industries that wallow in tradition. Discrimination and the cult of mediocrity both contribute to the dangerous working conditions of firefighters. She witnessed both and survived both.
She also wonders when things will change: “It’s hard to believe that we still allow this to happen,” she wrote regarding the tragic Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, “men and women marching into desolate places to test themselves against fire that is not threatening anything except woods and brush. Why not let it burn, take our chances, accept that we live in a place that has always known fire?” Her’s is the voice of a witness and participant and it’s one that deserves a vast audience.
April 16, 2019
I found this book to be pretty interesting. It was occasionally a page turner. Some parts were slow but mostly descriptive enough to continue reading it. Reading this book made me appreciate firefighters much more. They have to suppress their emotions when they’re on the job in order to not make mistakes due to their emotions getting in the way. Her struggles of being a woman on the rig shows how men have different thought processes than her, as she is more worried about others dying. She has a lot of experience to share and also gives perspective on rookies who mention they are excited. It’s a new perspective that I think I needed because fires are really terrifying and I’m glad I don’t have to worry about it.
September 25, 2017
A beautifully written memoir by a truly impressive woman. This deserves more attention than it has received- Mary Emerick has faced down what so many of us fear, She is to be admired for her grit and tenacity in a career that doesn't have room for error or for flinching. She certainly has a right to ptsd and survivor guilt but she owns her decisions. I imagine writing this helped her move through her past and I'm looking forward to what she writes in the future. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. This one is a winner.
October 11, 2022
I worked my way slowly through this book over the course of summer/fall and I have to say I’m a little sad not to have it to pick up anymore when I don’t know what I want to read.
The timeline skipped but it never felt hard to follow. I truly felt immersed in the author’s world, felt her pain, her joys, and her journey.
I really grew to care for Mary throughout this read and I hope she is out there living her best life!
The timeline skipped but it never felt hard to follow. I truly felt immersed in the author’s world, felt her pain, her joys, and her journey.
I really grew to care for Mary throughout this read and I hope she is out there living her best life!
January 7, 2022
I love love loved this book! As an avid outdoor adventure reader— this tale of a 20 year career in wildland firefighting was a breath of fresh air among a million hiking and mountaineering books. Emerick beautifully shares the struggle of a seasonal nomadic life. The lack of tight bonds in opposition to the feeling of family among strangers at every fire camp.
December 1, 2021
I love Mary’s writing; it always reads like one long poem. And she has many interesting life experiences to share in her books. This book covers several years in the 1990s she spent as a wildlands firefighter. I learned that firefighting is just as life-threatening of a job as you can imagine, but to work as one is as mesmerizing as the fire itself. As Mary puts it, her relationship with fire is like a bad romance, almost addictive. From rookie to veteran, Mary tells anecdotes that will keep you on the edge of your seat, all of which has a profound impact on her life.
June 1, 2026
This book is memoir of time spent fighting fires written by a woman who has led a footloose life with primarily outdoor jobs in nature. She fought wildfires for twenty years. I picked up this book because I was on a summer fire fighting crew for three summers while I was in college (1973, 4, and 5), and this book brought back a lot of memories. When I was doing wildfire work, women were just beginning to be on fire crews. I spent one summer on an all-men crew, and the next two summers we had women on the fire line. It was interesting to see how it changed the vibe of the work. I like women more than men and I hate macho bullshit, so I was fine with having women in the crew. But it did change the nature of the job. Things got a little softer and of course there were subtle mating displays. I did find it interesting to see how the women tried to adapt to the work and I was surprised to see them often fall into supporting roles in a way that men would not. It seemed odd that a woman would break into a male-dominated work and then just let themself become a support person. I saw this happen when the women were attracted to the men. I suspect the women on the fire line today might behave differently, but male/female dynamics do change slowly.
The author (Mary Emerick) addresses the need to prove that she was more than capable of doing the work as a woman. She had the physical challenge (being smaller and with less upper body strength), the challenge of the male sexism, and the challenge of self doubt. I did relate to the description of her overcoming the physical challenge. I was very poor at sports, but I was surprised to find that I was able to keep up with and even out work guys that were good athletes. I suspect it was my ability to tolerate pain and the determination not to fail. I was surprised and pleased to find that I was just as capable of doing the work as any one else. There is no skill required to dig fireline, you just need endurance and persistence.
My firefighting experiences were never very dangerous, but I did see some close calls with fire and some injuries. But these were always with other nearby people, I rarely felt I was in serious personal danger. Emerick stresses the danger of the fire, and how she was drawn to that part of the job. She was attracted to fire and in some sense it seems she was attracted to the danger of fire. I am sure with all the fires she was on there were some close calls, but I think that much of the danger in firefighting is simply being active in rugged terrain in dark or smoke while being totally exhausted. She had a close friend die on the fireline and so the danger of fire is a major theme of the book. She was drawn to the danger of the fire until she experienced that loss. The book in some ways is a tribute to the lost firefighter.
The firefighter friend that died was a smoke jumper, the elite of wildfire fighters. She doesn’t mention it, but it seems to me that job should be eliminated. There is no reason to fight fires in the wilderness that requires smoke jumpers. Those fires should burn has they have for the past scores of millions of years.
Mary Emerick seems like a highly unusual person, driven to extreme physical challenges and able to live without close personal partners. It is a rare person that can do fireline work for decades. The physical toll on the body is high.
There is a romance to firefighting; some of my strongest memories from that time in my life are of beauty of night-time fires. Walking through a burn in the dark just after the fire has gone through with flames flickering all around and embers drifting down from the trees can be magical.
I enjoyed the book, primarily because of my own experience with firefighting. However, I also found the nature of Mary Emerick’s life interesting as well.
The author (Mary Emerick) addresses the need to prove that she was more than capable of doing the work as a woman. She had the physical challenge (being smaller and with less upper body strength), the challenge of the male sexism, and the challenge of self doubt. I did relate to the description of her overcoming the physical challenge. I was very poor at sports, but I was surprised to find that I was able to keep up with and even out work guys that were good athletes. I suspect it was my ability to tolerate pain and the determination not to fail. I was surprised and pleased to find that I was just as capable of doing the work as any one else. There is no skill required to dig fireline, you just need endurance and persistence.
My firefighting experiences were never very dangerous, but I did see some close calls with fire and some injuries. But these were always with other nearby people, I rarely felt I was in serious personal danger. Emerick stresses the danger of the fire, and how she was drawn to that part of the job. She was attracted to fire and in some sense it seems she was attracted to the danger of fire. I am sure with all the fires she was on there were some close calls, but I think that much of the danger in firefighting is simply being active in rugged terrain in dark or smoke while being totally exhausted. She had a close friend die on the fireline and so the danger of fire is a major theme of the book. She was drawn to the danger of the fire until she experienced that loss. The book in some ways is a tribute to the lost firefighter.
The firefighter friend that died was a smoke jumper, the elite of wildfire fighters. She doesn’t mention it, but it seems to me that job should be eliminated. There is no reason to fight fires in the wilderness that requires smoke jumpers. Those fires should burn has they have for the past scores of millions of years.
Mary Emerick seems like a highly unusual person, driven to extreme physical challenges and able to live without close personal partners. It is a rare person that can do fireline work for decades. The physical toll on the body is high.
There is a romance to firefighting; some of my strongest memories from that time in my life are of beauty of night-time fires. Walking through a burn in the dark just after the fire has gone through with flames flickering all around and embers drifting down from the trees can be magical.
I enjoyed the book, primarily because of my own experience with firefighting. However, I also found the nature of Mary Emerick’s life interesting as well.
August 25, 2019
Haunting
I wi!I be thinking about this book for a long time. Like Mary, I lived most of my adult life as a single woman. I didn't have fire. Her words about the intensity of fighting fire, the boredom, the staggering hours, the teams, the thrills, the camaraderie resonate for me. I have not been in places where I could quickly run out of options and die. But, I have taken risks and done things my friends advised against. And, like Mary, I have done things few or no women had done before in the place I was. Women today don't know how we struggled so that it would be easier for them now. In her telling of the seasons and places and her observations of people, she tells the story of a woman moving in a world where men and women thought women didn't belong.
I'm going to be thinking of the women and men fighting fires with a new understanding of the work they do and what life is like for a group living and working together under those conditions. I'm going to be thinking about my decisions to protect my heart as she protected hers. I'm so taken by the physical work she did and by her bravery.
I don't know how to write a review. I like Mary's writing.
I wi!I be thinking about this book for a long time. Like Mary, I lived most of my adult life as a single woman. I didn't have fire. Her words about the intensity of fighting fire, the boredom, the staggering hours, the teams, the thrills, the camaraderie resonate for me. I have not been in places where I could quickly run out of options and die. But, I have taken risks and done things my friends advised against. And, like Mary, I have done things few or no women had done before in the place I was. Women today don't know how we struggled so that it would be easier for them now. In her telling of the seasons and places and her observations of people, she tells the story of a woman moving in a world where men and women thought women didn't belong.
I'm going to be thinking of the women and men fighting fires with a new understanding of the work they do and what life is like for a group living and working together under those conditions. I'm going to be thinking about my decisions to protect my heart as she protected hers. I'm so taken by the physical work she did and by her bravery.
I don't know how to write a review. I like Mary's writing.
December 18, 2017
This book is not only a fascinating glimpse into the world of those that battle wildfires, but also a great reflection on our changing views and values during these past decades. I thought she outlined how hard women had to work and how perfect they had to be to just get a chance; and, we are only human and can't help but feel a twinge of hurt when young women today don't seem to recognize the battles fought for them. I thought her change in belief in how fire is a natural and beneficial part of nature was educational. Her stories of relationships as she interacted with friend and lovers and how we let those we care about drift out of our lives was very moving. How grief can hit you so hard when someone you care about is suddenly gone. I found myself pondering many of the issues she addressed in her memoir several days after finishing this book. This is why I consider it to be an excellent book.
October 7, 2023
I finished reading Fire in the Heart in less than a week and I really enjoyed it. This is the second Mary Emerick book I have read (Geography of Water was the other) and I once again enjoyed her attention to nature. Fire in the Heart was really was quite an amazing story. It was fascinating to learn about her experiences as a woman wildland firefighter. I had no perception of what that life might be like in general and hadn't ever really given it much thought as to what it would be like for a woman. What an interesting and challenging life she has led. I recognize and respect the vulnerability that comes from sharing, with anyone who choses to read her book, the details of a personal life journey that includes the relationships and the emotions that arise. Fire in the Heart was a memoir that read like fiction. I learned a bunch and I had fun doing it.
September 22, 2017
Excellent writing! This put me right back on the fire line. Mary I was right on your heels out there. She perfectly sums up all of those unspoken emotions, goals, and everything that keeps fire lovers going back season after season.
I was reading my own thoughts and language.
I can not say enough good about this book- I absolutely read and savored every word on every page. Storm King is always there in my head too...
I was reading my own thoughts and language.
I can not say enough good about this book- I absolutely read and savored every word on every page. Storm King is always there in my head too...
July 13, 2019
A memoir of friends and fire...
This is the story of a life I cannot imagine living, or wanting to live. Places I will never go, and situations I will never face, along with people as alien to me as Martians made this read a remarkable experience for me. The Epilogue is beautifully written, the rest of the book, less so - but I’m glad to have had a glimpse at this nomadic and dangerous way of life.
This is the story of a life I cannot imagine living, or wanting to live. Places I will never go, and situations I will never face, along with people as alien to me as Martians made this read a remarkable experience for me. The Epilogue is beautifully written, the rest of the book, less so - but I’m glad to have had a glimpse at this nomadic and dangerous way of life.
January 7, 2018
a great read; very well written and captivating.; about the life of a "seasonal wanderer, " and about nature. I wanted to keep reading to find out what path the author decided to take in life. She is a very good writer and I found myself rooting for her.
February 26, 2018
The level of dedication to pursue a career in firefighting, especially wild fires, is admirable. It is especially challenging for women, and I appreciate Mary's courage and dedication. This was a book club read for me, otherwise I would not have picked it up but I am glad I did.
March 3, 2018
Always fascinated by fire.
Very enjoyable read. Some of the sections describing wilderness remind me of where I live now and our camp. Having read both her books; I can see her growing as a writer. Good job!
Very enjoyable read. Some of the sections describing wilderness remind me of where I live now and our camp. Having read both her books; I can see her growing as a writer. Good job!
April 30, 2018
Firefighting
This was a fascinating story, and I found that I could not put this book down, I kept wanting to find out how her life ended up. Being part of a CERT team, I in a way understand the need to help, but nothing to the extreme as fighting forest fires.
This was a fascinating story, and I found that I could not put this book down, I kept wanting to find out how her life ended up. Being part of a CERT team, I in a way understand the need to help, but nothing to the extreme as fighting forest fires.
December 31, 2017
It really is a ' Fire in the Heart .
A very moving and personal story of a young woman who recounts her decades of fire fighting all over America.
A very moving and personal story of a young woman who recounts her decades of fire fighting all over America.
January 10, 2018
This is a good read. Very interesting to read about what the Fireman/women do with wildfires. Probably could have been about 20 pages shorter, but worth the read.
October 14, 2019
A badass woman firefighter! I love reading about pioneering women - and this memoir provided all of that inspiration. Lots of interesting information about fire fighting too!
April 24, 2025
This book describes fire as a character which is interesting, I learned about fighting fires and the equipment, long hours etc. but I wanted more relationships building with the people.
May 5, 2025
interesting memoir by a woman about her 20 years as a wildfire firefighter. it's not great writing, but it's a lifestyle and occupation I knew nothing about before.
April 23, 2026
Excellent memoir, not only for the descriptions of the life of a firefighter, but for the emotional impact.
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