We'd

  single-filed through a field office completing duties and re-uniting appropriately on schedule.  There was no word for the kind of 'draft' that had caught a Galax on fire.  Smudges and bruises were coated in petroleum jellies and so we were somewhat idfentifiable as probably shouldn't just get back to work.

  "Eh?!! One more here." A man with singed hair and wrapped in gauze fingers had sniffed the air, but the nurse had walked away without treating a gash on his shins.  "Put these on him," an Admin clutched the packaged face mask and sunglasses hard but passed them over to a field desk.

  An indeterminate amount of time brought us to mid-range.  On the Cherohalla some of the trees coated in liquid were already sending cracks of distress "calls".  Someone asked, "How is this possible?  A tree making a call?" Field bags had been tossed onto small puddlejumper planes in a rush: Hostages.