"Emerick vividly recounts the extremely taxing physical requirements, the deadly conditions firefighters consistently endure, and the ever present lure of adventure and camaraderie each fire provides....A moving and bittersweet memoir of a woman’s love affair with a unique profession."--
Kirkus Reviews"This is a story of love, friendship, wildfire, and death written in vivid prose fresh from the fireline. Mary Emerick was a little girl with spindly arms and legs who toughed it out to become a career wildland firefighter, hoping for “the big one” in the West and filling in the offseason as a “panther babe” on burns in Florida. There’s as much heart as fire in this book. It took a “big one,” the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain, to bring home the deepest meanings of love, loss, and the bittersweet renewal of life that follows the flames."
--John N. Maclean, author of Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, and other books.
“Masterful! A beautiful, gripping exploration of Mary Emerick’s twenty-five-year journey through the insular, dangerous, hyper-masculine world of wildfire. In riveting prose, Emerick writes of what she gave up–and what she gained–by choosing a life as a wildland firefighter. Fire in the Heart is a thoughtful meditation on the impact of wildland fire suppression on the American landscape, and on one woman’s heart. I love this book!”—Mary Pauline Lowrey, author of
Wildfire: a Novel "Hour by hour, season by season, fire by fire, readers crisscross the country with Emerick as she rises to the challenges of this difficult life, even as she asks herself whether she can ever stop moving and find another kind of life, where staying might not mean entrapment, where freedom means home." --Bette Lynch Husted, author of
