Smokejumpers
Even when I have a deadline, I have to eat. These days, that means the dining hall at the Galena Bureau of the Interior base. The fires have started up here in Alaska, which means fire crews. Which means smokejumpers. And here, it means the Alaska smokejumpers. This handful of men and women do things most of us, myself absolutely included, would never dream of doing. Going into the Alaskan bush with only what they can carry on their backs. Jumping out of aircraft. Fighting fires. And they do it all at once.
I write good heroes. My fellow authors write good heroes. Yet, sometimes, fiction cannot possibly impress as thoroughly as reality.