It is a devastating tragedy: in the South Canyon of Colorado’s Thunder Mountain, a sudden cold front whips a small, containable fire into a raging inferno, killing nine heroic firefighters from the Duke City Hotshots. The US Forest Service blames the dead; a victim’s grieving mother charges the government with negligence.
Into this flammable mix enters Albuquerque lawyer Neil Hamel, hired to pursue the explosive wrongful death case. Mounting an investigation of her own, Neil interviews shocked survivors of the fire, then hikes the charred remains of the forest where the Hotshots met their end. But after retracing the steps of their flight, she will face the terror of their last gasps of breath—because someone is playing with fire.