Fire destroys and fire creates, according to firefighters-turned-authors River Selby and Kelly Ramsey, who fought wildland fire as hotshots and lived to come out on the other side, irrevocably changed. Ramsey’s Wildfire Days was published June 17, and Selby’s Hotshot will be released on Aug. 12.
Each book intimately reveals the humans behind the wildland firefighting workforce — their personal problems, messy home lives and the sacrifices they had to make to do this grueling job. Self-doubt, fraught relationships with parents and struggles with the femininity that made them both “hyper-visible and invisible” on the male-dominated fire line are themes that resonate through both books. While Ramsey ultimately found a sense of belonging, Selby, who’s nonbinary, was driven away by a toxic workplace environment. Both memoirs include honest accounts of healing from trauma, and the authors muse about the history and ecology of Western landscapes, providing clear-eyed analyses of the broken institutions that employ wildland firefighters.
High Country News got the authors together for a phone call at the beginning of the fire season: Selby called from Tallahassee, Florida, while Ramsey spoke from Redding, California.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
High Country News: Both memoirs are raw and honest. You write about your demons and other people’s demons — everything from period blood and death to alcoholism and bulimia. What is it like to put out such an intimate portrayal, not just of fighting wildfire, but of yourselves as humans?
River Selby: I wanted to write a book that I could hand to my 22-year-old self. It would help them see themselves more clearly and accept themselves. If one person picks up my book and reads it and feels less shame about the things they’ve been through or the things they’ve done, then I have accomplished everything I set out to accomplish.
Kelly Ramsey: I love that, River. I love the place of peace and acceptance that you’ve come to. My personal messiness in the book, which was very recent — I had to really reckon with those things through the writing process and come to a place of forgiving myself for being human. I hope that the right reader will see me being vulnerable and flawed and that will make them feel better. Vulnerability really has its rewards.
RS: Much of the argument I’m making in the book is that the culture in this profession is oppressive for everybody. If I wasn’t an example of the openness that I think we need to have in this profession, then I wouldn’t be doing my job.
HCN: I want to talk about taking up space. River, you write about both feeling invisible, and, at other times, asserting your right to exist as a female-bodied firefighter. Can you talk about how you were perceived as a wildland firefighter?
RS: I brought my background to the crew. I had been a sex worker. I had learned to objectify myself and see myself in that way and also didn’t want to be seen in that way. I wasn’t seen as a person; I was almost seen as an archetype. This is “the girl” on the crew. And everything I did was interpreted through that difference. The book is me giving myself what I couldn’t do back then, which was to say, “Hey, actually, I am a whole person, and I have a right to exist in my own right and to be seen in my own right.” This is me, and someone like me should be a firefighter. Anyone can be a firefighter. We should open up that space for everybody.
HCN: Kelly, you write about being ‘the girl’ too. You write about the 19 men on your crew and that, “I — for better or worse — was their girl.” In the end, was it for better? Or for worse?
KR: The first year it was for better, and the second year — opinions are mixed. The first year, I was the only girl, so yeah, I was objectified. I was tokenized. And then the second year, there were two women, and we were inadvertently pitted against each other. I felt very much at a disadvantage because of my gender, but then I won them over as I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life. I always volunteered to carry the heaviest thing. I wouldn’t stop digging line until the last person was done digging. It went through phases of the girl who was the outsider, the girl who was our project, and then, just Kelly. I don’t think you ever obtain full personhood. But I felt like I got close.
HCN: What’s it like being “the girl” in fire today? Have things changed?
RS: I think it’s important to mention that the things I experienced on my crew, that level of aggressiveness, still happen today. A superintendent or a district ranger, or whoever is at the top of the hierarchy, is setting the culture. If you have an old-school superintendent, then everyone’s going to fall in line with that. There will be retaliation if you report — and that has definitely not changed. But I’ve also heard from many women who have had completely positive experiences because their crew culture is very inclusive to women.
HCN: We’re living in a culture right now that’s arguably even more tolerant of misogyny and bigotry than it was 10 years ago. How do your memoirs relate to the current moment?
KR: I’m still pushing for growth and still seeing the potential of what could happen. I’m still envisioning hotshot crews that are nearly half non-men. I think that, despite what’s happening, very, very slowly, fire culture is becoming corrective.
RS: One of the arguments that I’m making is that things like DEI are absolutely essential. And they improve workplaces. My book is really making an argument for way more of a focus on diversity. When there’s just one person, that person is tokenized. But if you bring in four or five, then they’re just part of a crew. That doesn’t make less for anybody. We need so many firefighters. They’re literally begging people to fight fire.
What I hope my book can also say in this current moment is that we really need to be paying attention and listening to Indigenous people about land stewardship, about reintroducing fire. We need to be letting those people have access to lands that were stolen from them.
Hotshot: A Life on Fire
By River Selby
336 pages, hardcover: $27.00
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025.
Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West
By Kelly Ramsey
352 pages, hardcover: $29.99
Scribner, 2025.
HCN: Your books are coming out back-to-back this summer. How do they speak to each other and strengthen each other’s arguments?
RS: I think it’s easy to read a book written by one person who had one experience and think that is the experience. What’s so incredible about my book coming out and Kelly’s book coming out in the same summer is that we have very different experiences. It’s not just about the time gap. It’s about the fact that every single person has an individual experience in these environments. It would be a disservice to say this is just a gendered issue. It’s not just about women; it’s not just about minorities. It’s about a culture that polices behavior so aggressively that people leave the job that they love, people work through injuries, and people die by suicide at much higher rates than other professions.
KR: There’s not just one way of what it looks like to be a woman in fire or to be a nonbinary person in fire. I also want to say that while my book is about fire on one level, what it’s actually about is being the child of an alcoholic and having a really rough childhood, trying to heal and trying to find yourself after that kind of pain. I saw a lot of that in River’s book as well. The part of our books that I love the most is watching us grow as people through fire — how fire did transform and, in some cases, yes, traumatize us, but in other ways, really strengthen us and teach us who we wanted to be, and help us become that person.
Note: This story was updated to correct a quote from River Selby about learning to objectify themself.
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