The year is 1960. Bill Pengallen, a young college student, has taken on a summer job working on a fire suppression crew for the U.S. Forest Service in the California mountain town of Truckee, where he meets and becomes friends with Mike Cameron, a pre-Med student. It is the third dries summer in the area's history, the forest is a tinderbox. An Interstate highway is being thrust through the area, fire danger threatens the livelihood of ranchers and loggers. Tension rides high. Violence threatens to break out at any time, and then the area is swept by one of the most disastrous forest fires in California history to that time.

The fire changes the lives of everyone involved--some temporarily, others permanently. This is the story of the events leading up to and involving that monumental event, the time of the fire.