New York Times: They trained their eyes on the mountain that smoldered in the distance as they carved a path through a forest choked by fire and drought. The ground crackled underfoot. Packs sagged from their backs, heavy with the gear frontline firefighters must carry: pickaxes, temperature gauges, spades, radios, plenty of water.
Down in the valley, a village burned. "This is pretty wild," one of the firefighters, Andrew Ashcraft, wrote in a text message to his wife, Juliann, at 2:02 p.m. that Sunday as the...