After months of being shuttled from wildfire to wildfire across the bone-dry American West, it seemed only fitting that Kelly Ramsey's final assignment of 2020, a record-breaking season, would be the largest fire in California's history.

"I knew it was coming. We all knew it was coming. Almost every crew in California was getting called to this fire at some point," said Ramsey.

The crew drove nearly six hours just to travel from the eastern to the northern section of the fire, known as the "August Complex," which had burned through one million acres (404,685 hectares).

They wove through a yellow smoke-filled moonscape of towering trees, which resembled charred matchsticks. The flames they saw turned the heads of even the most seasoned crew members.

"So already it's this feeling of like, 'Oh my God,'" Ramsey recalls.

What it takes to a be a 'hotshot'

One of the crew's first tasks was to torch a stretch of land near a highway caught in the fire's path. Clearing away any potential fuel would, they hoped, halt the insatiable wildfire. At least in one area.

Given the extremely arid conditions, the crew had to be particularly vigilant. An accidental fire start could "add another 50,000 acres" to the inferno.

By this point, Ramsey's physical and mental stamina had been put to the test during her first season on the hotshot crew, an elite wildland firefighting unit often compared to the Navy Seals — recognizable by their yellow shirts and high-laced mountaineer boots.

The United States relies on roughly 100 of these federally-funded 20-person teams to manage wildfires in the most remote, rugged terrain, to prevent them from spreading uncontrollably.........

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