Fire in the Heart: A Memoir of Friendship, Loss, and Wildfire

A powerful memoir of a female wilderness firefighter—“a story of love, friendship, wildfire, and death written in vivid prose fresh from the fire line” (John N. Maclean, author of Fire on the Mountain). Mary Emerick was once a shy schoolgirl before she dared to become that rarest of heroes—a woman who could stand on the front lines in the heat of a roaring wildfire. Determined to forge herself into a stronger, braver person, Mary climbed to heights she never imagined and found a courage within herself she never knew existed. But when she lost someone she loved to the nightmarish Storm King Mountain forest fire in Colorado that 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. Fire in the Heart is both a thrilling memoir about life-threatening work and a meditation on identity, bravery, unbreakable bonds, and survivor’s guilt. It is “a moving and bittersweet memoir of a woman’s love affair with a unique profession” (Kirkus Reviews). Read more