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fire-fighter training the previous week. She had signed in for her first shift and was just stashing her kit in her new locker when the call came in. The trees in the municipal park near the cemetery were on fire. Now she was in the cab of Engine 33, craning her neck outof the window to look at the pall of smoke on the hill.
    In the cab with her were her new team-mates, whom she had met for the first time that morning: Petra Wardell, the driver and team leader, and fire-fighters Andy Delmonte and Darren Beogh.
    The crew hadn’t exactly looked thrilled when they were introduced to their new colleague. Wanasri’s family were from Thailand, and although she was tall, her build was slight. Andy, Darren and Petra were all big Australians with broad shoulders. Andy was in his forties and heavy-set. Wanasri could see what was going through their minds as they were introduced. What use will someone so small be as a firefighter?
    Now they might have to trust her with their lives, and she had to trust in them. Today, Wanasri had a lot to prove.
    The smoke was drifting towards them. All the crew coughed as it caught at the back of their throats. There was no smell like it. Wanasri recognized the resiny tang of burning eucalyptus. It sent a surge of adrenaline pumping through her veins. She felt ready for anything, like a soldier psyched up for combat.
    Ahead was a big wooden fence. The tall treesbehind it were blazing, sending orange flames shooting ten metres into the sky.
    The engine stopped beside a big house clad in white weatherboard. This would be their front line – the territory they had to protect. If they couldn’t put out the burning trees, the fire would spread to the house and it would go up like kindling …
    Wanasri jumped smartly out of the cab, putting her yellow helmet on. She fastened the catch under her chin and pulled the visor down as the heat hit her like a furnace. Andy and Darren had already begun unwinding the hose lines and Petra grabbed one, ran in and started to play the water into the flames.
    Wanasri picked up a line too. The metal nozzle was heavy in her hands. The water started to course down inside it, making it move like a live snake. She looked towards the fire as she had done hundreds of times in training – and froze. This was a real fire, not a practice. Somebody’s home was under threat.
    Darren dragged a hose past her and shouted, ‘What are you doing? Get stuck in!’
    That kick-started something in Wanasri’s brain. There was a gap in the line, waiting for her. She ran in.
    Her firefighting career had well and truly started.
    She had never frozen like that in training. She didn’t know what had come over her, but she resolved that it would never happen again.
    The water poured out of the hoses in white arcs. When it hit the burning columns of vegetation it turned into steam. The eucalyptus trees were rich in oils and burned particularly well. The heat rose, creating thermal currents, sucking flaming fragments into the air. They landed on other trees and set them alight. As fast as one tree was put out, another was catching.
    Wanasri’s team was driving the fire away from the house. Meanwhile another team attacked it from the other side of the fence, and a third crew was drenching the walls and roof of the house in case a burning branch came its way.
    Wanasri had seen house fires in training, both as simulations and in films illustrating lectures. She had those pictures in her mind now. You could always see what it had been like before the fire: the outlines of paintings or mirrors on the walls; the sofas reduced to metal frames after the cushions had been gobbled upby the flames. Worse still were the items that were irreplaceable: the fragments of photos, the books, the videotapes. The devastation was obscene. That was what would happen to this house in front of her if she failed.
    Wanasri’s arms soon ached with the strain of holding the nozzle. Her turnout gear – as they called