I set out to fight fires—then discovered that I loved them. By M. R. O’Connor ![Illustration of a figure wearing a fire fighter's uniform in front of a field set on fire.]()
Before I left the cityfor the prairie, I never thought that I might be a pyromaniac. I’d never started a fire outside a hearth, or thrilled at seeing one burning on the landscape. Then I stood in Nebraska, at dusk, with a crew of wildland firefighters, land managers, and biologists charged with setting fires. Our group had been organized by the local chapter of the conservation organization Pheasants Forever; our job was to burn several thousand acres of prairie in a “prescribed fire,” which would support soil, grasses, and wildlife. Our “burn boss,” a man from California named Dan Kelleher, had a white mustache and luminous blue eyes. He liked to call himself an old hippie, but he was a fire savant. “Play fire scientist,” he told us. How powerfully, timidly, unpredictably, eagerly, or gently did a fire behave and why? What matrix of variables created a fire’s character? We would learn how wind, humidity, topography, fuel, and clouds spurred or inhibited combustion. We’d get to know fire intimately. | 
