Aunt Nicole convinced Lucas and Eleanor to stay for dinner after all, and soon enough they were gathered around the picnic table. Lucas and Eleanor dug into some tacos and rice and beans. Everyone else helped themselves to some sweet and sticky flan for dessert. Aunt Nicole lit the small candles that were scattered across the table. They raised their glasses of lemonade and clinked to King Kong’s safe return.

And then Mom turned her attention to Lucas and Eleanor.

“So tell us about your jobs,” she said. “Must be exciting to be firefighters.”

“We love it,” Eleanor said, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “But for this time of year, it’s a little too exciting. It’s not even the hot part of fire season yet — that’s not usually until August and the fall. But it’s been so hot with no rain. The forests are dry as dust. We’ve already had some pretty big wildfires.”

Josh paused mid-bite, thinking about the burned-out forest on their drive in. “You fight wildfires?” he asked. He’d been imagining them putting out house fires, like the firefighters in his town back home. But fighting wildfires? That sounded pretty amazing. Dad would definitely love meeting these two!

“That’s right — they call us wildland firefighters,” Lucas said, snagging a taco. “We work for Cal Fire — that’s short for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.”

“Our air attack base is about ten miles from here,” Eleanor added.

“Air attack?” Josh said. Sounded like the name of a new video game.

“Cal Fire has a small air force for fighting wildfires,” Eleanor said, taking a scoop of rice and beans. “Twenty-two bases around the state, about one hundred aircraft. We’re usually the first to the scene when a wildfire breaks out.” She whipped out her phone, scrolled for a second, and held up a picture of a huge jet airplane.

“This is our DC-10 air tanker,” she said. “This baby can fly over a fire and drop about twelve thousand gallons of water or flame retardant … that’s the red stuff that makes it harder for a fire to spread.”

Josh remembered from the video he saw how the plane seemed to be smearing red finger paint across the sky.

“And check this out,” Eleanor said with a grin. “This is our Bell UH-1H Super Huey — finest helicopter there is, in my opinion. We use them to transport firefighters, to do water drops, and sometimes to rescue people.”

Josh studied the picture of the red-and-white helicopter. There was a person waving from the cockpit. He eyed Eleanor. “Is that you?” he asked.

Lucas smiled proudly. “Eleanor is one of the best pilots in the state.”

“Awesome!” Josh blurted out, a little louder than he meant to. “I always wanted to ride in a helicopter.”

Eleanor peeled back the sleeve of her T-shirt to show off a small helicopter tattoo on her shoulder.

Josh smiled, but then he imagined what it must be like to fly a helicopter into a fire. The idea terrified him.

“Don’t you ever get … scared?” Mom asked, reading Josh’s mind.

Eleanor nodded, swallowing a bite of taco. “All the time. But it’s Lucas and the rest of the ground crew who take most of the risks, battling the fires up close. And some of these big fires we’ve been having lately …” She shook her head and looked at Lucas.

“They’re definitely getting worse,” he said. “Bigger. Hotter. Harder to control.”

The candles flickered brighter.

“Is this because of climate change?” Mom asked.

Josh remembered the woman he and Mom had spoken to at the little store.

“Climate change is a huge part of it,” Lucas said, picking up his glass of lemonade. “The summers are longer and hotter; the air is drier. But there are other reasons, too, like more and more people building houses in places that used to be wild. It used to be that lightning sparked most wildfires. But now it’s people.”

Eleanor nodded. “And our forests are unhealthy and overgrown, filled with dead trees. That’s because in most places we haven’t had enough wildfires, the small kind of fires that burn away the dead trees and dried-up brush.”

“Why is that?” Mom asked.

“For about one hundred years, it’s been our policy all over America to fight wildfires no matter what. That sounds smart, right? Protect our wilderness. But forests actually need wildfires to be healthy.”

“I’m confused,” Holly said, sitting back in her chair.

So was Josh. Weren’t wildfires bad?

Lucas thought for a minute, then pointed to his plate, which was covered with rice and beans. “Imagine all this is a forest, with a mix of trees. Some are healthy, others are dead or sick, which is normal. If a fire starts in a forest like this, the flames take out the dead stuff — the sick trees, the dried-up brush. Most of the strong trees make it through.” He pushed half of the rice and beans to the side of the plate, then spread out what was left. “So after the fire, what’s left is healthier.”

Eleanor leaned forward.

“Except, like I said, some of our forests haven’t been allowed to burn for a hundred years. They’re overloaded with dead and sick trees and dried brush. So now when a wildfire breaks out, there’s so much more to burn. The fires get huge and so hot even most of the healthy trees don’t stand a chance.”

Josh stared at Lucas’s plate. He got it.

“And in weather like this, all it takes is just one spark,” Lucas said. “Yesterday some guy was smoking a cigar on a hiking trail — don’t ask me why — and some ash dropped into the brush. Next thing you know, the whole hillside is in flames. Luckily we got there quick and knocked down the fire before it spread into the forest. If that had happened …” He just shook his head. “Disaster. That entire forest would have burned, and maybe the towns around it, too.”

Josh flashed back again to those skeleton trees he and Mom had seen.

“On our way here from the airport we drove through a burned forest,” he said.

“What a terrible sight,” Mom added. “Just miles and miles of dead trees.”

Lucas and Eleanor glanced at each other.

“That was the River Complex Fire — Cal Fire names the bigger wildfires,” Lucas said. “That was one of the worst we’ve fought.”

“You were in that?” Josh asked in amazement.

Eleanor nodded. “We barely made it out alive.”

“You’ve never told us that story,” Aunt Nicole said.

“I don’t know …” Lucas said, shaking his head.

“I’d like to hear it,” Josh said quickly, nodding.

Mom, Holly, and Aunt Nicole nodded, too.

So in the glow of the candles, Eleanor and Lucas told the story of that terrifying day.