The firefighting experts (among whom the protagonist is senior), their wives and the government organization professional and non professional personnel are shown as they react to a threatening major fire in the Big Sur forested rea. interpersonal relationships are explored, especially between the austere central character and his intimate family relationships, as contrasted to that of his superior ad HIS deeply committed foreign-born wife, who serves also as his educated companion and uninhibited lover.A series of family crises, unusual seasonal weather conditions nd an unanticipated out-of-season wildland fire ignition culminate in the near-death of the protagonist as a result of errors in judgement engendered by his despair and conflicted sexual desire for his superior's wife which lead him to inadvertent entrapment in the fire, the high tech efforts to rescue him, and his long-term partially successful recovery from life-threatening injuries in the state-of-the-art burn center medical facility and finally a reconciled family life ending in his inevitable death.The author hopes you will enjoy the narrative as well as gain an insight into how the government firefighting agencies carry out their responsibilities with the aid of highly-trained personnel and sophisticated equipment and methods.