Inside the Flames: The Untold Story of a Hotshot’s Fierce Battle for Survival
Selby provides a larger framework for American healing, one that touts the work of burning and saving as necessary yet dangerous sacrifice and salve, opportunity and surrender. As a society, which policies, attitudes, and beliefs must we save? Which should we allow to burn, so that something more beautiful can blossom in its place? And on an individual level, how much destruction is needed to make true recovery possible?
As I continue to revise this review, the haze outside of my window has lifted. But more wildfires proliferate in the news: this time in Ventura and Los Angeles counties out in California. I remind myself of Selby’s urging to embrace the contradiction that comes with news of a wildfire. I open space within myself for the destruction and danger that comes with the inferno, typically at the expense of society’s most marginalized and underprivileged; yet also, the reminder that that first spark is nature’s insistence upon creating room for something more sustainable and ecologically desirable.
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