By Dana Wall

When the wildfires come, I’m the last call before evacuation. Not for insurance claims or property records – I save the irreplaceable. Family portraits passed down generations, handwritten letters from lost loves, the only photograph of a great-grandmother’s smile. I’ve learned which frames crack first, how quickly silver tarnishes in heat, the exact moment when memory becomes ash.

Tonight’s fire moves like a living thing. The hills glow amber, decades of drought-struck brush igniting like kindling. Three families have called, desperate to save pieces of their history. My fee goes to fire prevention programs now. Some debts can’t be paid in dollars.

First stop: the old Morrison house. Their family album spans five generations, leather-bound pages already warping from heat. The security system’s melted, wiring exposed. As I cut through smoke-filled rooms, the ceiling groans. I roll under falling beams, precious cargo tucked against my chest, feeling my protective gear start to fail.

The Chan family’s ancestral scrolls are next – a desperate dash. Flames block the front door, so I scale the burning walls, crash through a window. The study door’s warped shut from heat. Three minutes until flashover. My gloves sizzle as I work the lock. The scrolls’ red ink seems to pulse in the firelight, like they sense what’s coming. I slice through display cases while my boots begin to smoke.

Two rescues complete, one remains. But the Williams place is already an inferno. Their great-grandfather’s war medals and letters home – history about to become heat. Every breath tastes like tomorrow’s regret. The road’s blocked by fallen trees, so I take the ridge trail, jumping gaps where fire has eaten through. Inside, smoke’s so thick I navigate by memory and instinct. The strongbox needs a key I don’t have, so I take the whole thing, hefting its weight as the house shudders.

I’m halfway out when I hear barking. Not the fire alarm – a dog’s desperate cry. An old retriever huddled beneath a desk, forgotten in the chaos of evacuation. The strongbox weighs heavy in my arms, generations of memories inside.

No hesitation. The box hits the floor. Some things matter more than history.

They call me a hero now. They’re wrong. I’m still a thief – just stealing from a different kind of loss. The dog made it out. The medals and letters didn’t. But I’d rather have nightmares about lost artifacts than abandoned pets.

Tomorrow there’ll be more fires. More calls. More races against time. That’s what we do in fire country now – try to save what matters most before it all becomes smoke and memory.

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Dana Wall traded balance sheets for prose sheets after years of keeping Hollywood’s agents and lawyers in perfect order at ICM and Granderson Des Rochers. Armed with a Psychology degree that finally proved useful when creating complex characters and an MBA/CPA that helps her track plot points with spreadsheet precision, she ventured into the haunted halls of Goddard College’s MFA program. Her work in Bending Genres Journal, Mixed Tape Review, Intrepidus Ink, Witcraft, News Verse News, Eunoia Review, 34 Orchard, Neither Fish Nor Foul and Sykroniciti confirms that words are more reliable than numbers, though occasionally harder to balance.