Trial By Fire
Words and music by Tom May


I was a few miles away from the Storm King Mountain fire in Colorado in 1994 when I started this song. Also inspired by Norman Maclean’s “Young Men in Fire” it is a tribute to all of the wildland firefighters putting their lives on the line for us each summer season


Verse 1
From the Gate of the Rockies to Yellowstone Park to the mountain they call the Storm King
There are crosses in canyons, carved from its stone, scars from the fires caused by lightning
The heat and the smoke cause their own weather, the wind makes the power lines sing.
The animals run through the rocks and the brush, sounding their own silent warning.

Chorus
So here’s to the lost souls, who carried the shovels,
From the Cascade red cedar, to Dakota’s sage briar
May we all be as brave, as those young men and women
When we face our own trial by fire

Verse 2
From Prineville, Missoula, and Boise they came, as tough as an old leather boot
Bringing the skills and the strength of the young, and an 80 pound pack full of tools
They’d jump from the sky, run up a hillside, that was even too steep for a rough logging road
With the wood dry as tinder on the hot summer nights, just waiting for a spark to explode.

Chorus
So here’s to the lost souls, who carried the shovels,
From the Cascade red cedar, to Dakota’s sage briar
May we all be as brave, as those young men and women
When we face our own trial by fire

Verse 3
The inferno was crowning as the wind made a shift, moving sharply again to the west
The barometer dropped, the windspeed increased, the fire raced uphill to the crest of the rise
No trail, no backfire, could reverse its direction; it climbed fasted than anyone could
Leaving behind the ashes of youth, and a lesson still misunderstood

Chorus
So here’s to the lost souls, who carried the shovels,
From the Cascade red cedar, to Dakota’s sage briar
May we all be as brave, as those young men and women
When we face our own trial by fire

Verse 4
Now each of us chooses to make what we will, of this hillside we find ourselves on
Do we start down or climb, to the heighth of the ridge, to face squarely what we have or have not done.
But in 1949 at the Gates of the Rockies, to the 94 Fire on Storm Kind
White crosses attest, to the courage of those, who selflessly risked everything.

Chorus
So here’s to the lost souls, who carried the shovels,
From the Cascade red cedar, to Dakota’s sage briar
May we all be as brave, as those young men and women
When we face our own trial by fire

©1998 Blue Vignette Publishing, ASCAP