"Another window blows from the heat. I feel the adrenaline start to leak behind my ears, down my throat. My heart pounds. Not from fear, but from something else. Wonder. Awe. And a little bit of disbelief. There is something about fire that touches our soul and moves us in a profound primal way. In the face of it, we want to ask the bigger questions, lofty inappropriate questions like Why am I here on this earth? and smaller ones like How did I get here, to this place of being a firefighter?"

Caroline Paul, one of the first women in the San Francisco Fire Department, writes about what it's like to be a firefighter; the daily routine in the firehouse, the danger and thrills of risking your life fighting this elemental force. In remarkably gripping prose she shows us what life is like for a woman in what has traditionally been a man's world.

"Now come the vast possibilities, the meeting of chance, fate, and luck with skill and choice. There is no time for existential philosophy; I follow my lieutenant into the roaring building".