“Monroe’s Fire” is the story of one man’s near death in a forest fire in the Ventana Wilderness Area of California near Big Sur. The frightening description of the fire is authentic as is the narrative of the government’s efforts to suppress it. The story’s characters are modeled on real-world people whose careers are devoted to protecting lives and limiting the destruction of natural resources. They are not always successful, but read the story of how one man survived and how modern technology and state-of-the-art medicine made him nearly whole again after being burned almost beyond recognition and given up for dead.
The principal character, Scott Monroe, a veteran fire-control officer under the emotional stress of a failed marriage, has, against, his own judgment, become trapped in a remote redwood bark cabin in the path of the fire.
The story line follows his thoughts, physical suffering, near miraculous rescue, the heroic medical intervention that salvages his life and, finally his long-term rehabilitation.
Ancillary sub-plots follow the involvement of the public-safety agency people involved in his rescue and the medical personnel at a university burn center in their actions to restore vital functions and treat the PTSD-like effects of his unimaginably horrible experience in a burning structure with no evident way to escape.
Sub plots also reveal two complicated husband/wife relationships among victim and rescuers and the behavior of organized public safety agencies under life-threatening emergency conditions.
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