One Foot In The Black: A Wildland Firefighter's Story [Paperback]

Kurt Kamm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 2007

Greg Kowalski grows up in Michigan with an emotionally and physically abusive father, a Saginaw city firefighter. Cut off from his family, Greg travels to California to become a seasonal firefighter with CalFire.. He is tormented by the contradiction of hatred for his father and the need to have his father's approval and love. Greg moves on to the brutal LACoFD Helitack (helicopter firefighting) training academy where he graduates and begins work. He suffers traumatic stress after his crew is trapped on a mountainside in an explosive wildfire in which his captain and mentor dies. The night before this incident, Greg's father is killed in a fire in Saginaw. Greg struggles to cope. He comes to terms with the loss of his captain but has greater difficulty surmounting his father's influence on his life. This story focuses on the two formative years of his training as a young wildland firefighter when Greg comes of age and finds acceptance and comfort within the family of his fire crew.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Kamm, whose considerable research lends the novel a keen sense of verisimilitude, structures the narrative by unfolding two storylines at once: one tracking Greg's budding career and the other exploring the gloomy events of his childhood. Greg's efforts to shake loose of his past make for a compelling, fast-paced read.

A turbulent, thoughtful story of putting out fires, both personal and professional. -- Kirkus Discoveries, February 9, 2008

From the Author

The book has received favorable publicity in fire service newsletters, including CalFire's Connections, and LACoFD's Size-UP. The book has been featured on the Wildland Firefighter Foundation's website as well. The novel has been very popular with the fire crews in California.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 261 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (December 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1435706269
• ISBN-13: 978-1435706262
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kurt Kamm
I live in Malibu CA.

I have combined my personal experience in devastating California wildfires and access to CalFire and Los Angeles County firefighters to write firefighter mystery novels. Each novel has a firefighter with a special skill: Wildland / Arson Investigation / Fire Paramedic / HazMat Specialist. Each mystery is told from the viewpoint of the firefighter and the story revolves around his specialty.

My first novel, ONE FOOT IN THE BLACK - A Wildland Firefighter's Story tells the story of a young firefighter who joins a helitack crew, is called out to a massive wildland fire, and loses his captain in a burnover. After the tragedy, he succumbs to post traumatic stress and has a difficult time overcoming it. ONE FOOT IN THE BLACK has become a favorite with firefighters and other first responders.

RED FLAG WARNING - A SERIAL ARSON MYSTERY has won three first place mystery fiction awards. Los Angeles County is burning. A serial arsonist is setting the parched hills on fire. Plunge into infernos and face the smoke, heat and danger with the men of the fire lines. While NiteHeat prowls in the darkness, setting fires and taunting investigators, the Los Angeles County Fire Department Arson Unit struggles to find the fire-setter and stop the devastation.

CODE BLOOD tells the story of a rookie fire paramedic who is obsessed with finding the severed foot of his first victim after she dies in his arms. His search takes him into the connected lives of a research student with the rarest blood in the world and the vampire fetishist who is stalking her. Within the corridors of high-stakes medical research laboratories, the shadow world of body parts dealers, and the underground Goth clubs of Los Angeles, the paramedic uncovers a tangled maze of needles, drugs and ritual, all of which lead to death.

I am currently working on my fourth mystery - HAZARDOUS MATERIAL, which will be available in 2012.

I maintain a fire related website at http://www.kurtkamm.com/
My blog, Firefighter's Words, posts stories and comments from the fire/ems and first responder communities. I have fire pictures sent to me from all over the world.

Contact me at [e-mail]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 'One Foot in the Black' shows both of the Author's Feet on Solid Ground, May 24, 2008

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Foot In The Black: A Wildland Firefighter's Story (Paperback)

Kurt Kamm may be new to the published writing field but his initial entry, ONE FOOT IN THE BLACK, is a solid one. Kamm manages to give insight into the dangerous field of firefighting in the notorious hot bed of California's 'other disaster' while at the same time carefully exploring the influence of parental imprinting and lasting psychic injury from distant or abusive fathers. The melding of these two topics makes Kamm's first novel a strong entry into the literary arena.

Kamm's choice of location for this story - California, the land of beautiful landscapes and vistas chewed almost every year by cruel wildfires fanned by the ever-threatening Santana winds- provides an apt background for his tale of a young graduate - Greg Kowalski - from a Saginaw, Michigan high school who flees his emotionally abusive firefighter father to prove himself a worthy man as a firefighter in California. The journey toward manhood includes thwarted love relationships, the fragile discovery of true family life, the rigors of militaristic firefighter training, the physically challenging aspects of facing the powerful terror of firestorms, the bonding and camaraderie with his fellow firefighters (as well as the fraternity hazing incidents that help mold Greg's maturing response toward becoming an adult), and the agony of facing the bitter consequences of losing his best friend to the fire monster he fights. In a manner of 240 pages Kamm creates a dramatic story of one man's struggle for finding his identity as well as writing an informative and obviously well researched examination of the art and danger of firefighting.

Kamm has the gift to tell a story well: his grace in writing will doubtless move into a more sophisticated realm as he moves to his next book. The flaws here are those of pacing and disruption of story flow, a factor the author elects to overcome by naming each chapter with the names of towns that reference his character's development - not a bad technique but one that prevents steady growth of character development in favor of episodic asides that slow the momentum of the story. This is a minor, fixable flaw, and one that in the end does not detract from the fact that Kurt Kamm obviously has the talent to write exciting, stimulating, and instructive novels. Grady Harp, May 08

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Personality of a Wildfire, August 12, 2008

By 

Susan Haley "author" (Sarasota, FL The Sun Coast) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Foot In The Black: A Wildland Firefighter's Story (Paperback)

"Wildfires have personalities. Some of them creep around in the brush and try to lull you into a sense of overconfidence. They hide until they gain strength and then overwhelm you when you least expect it . . ." I learned this from the author on page two. On page 241, I realized I could almost write the same verbal illustration for the personalities of the book itself.

One Foot In The Black, the book, begins in an anchor point, that place from which firefighters start building a fire line, or in this case, the story. A gripping presentation of subject and plot and the two main characters comes in the `anchor point' prologue with ". . . a year ago, I saw a man go up in flames."

Then, the personalities, the "spot fires, those flashes outside the perimeter that will ignite the main fire", start creeping in. They flare up in a back and forth accounting of past and present; chopping through the brush and strengthening and developing the two main characters: Greg Kowalski, an emotionally beaten down, but driven, young firefighter trainee on a mission to prove himself to his abusive firefighter father. And a massive wildfire named Pozo. Both young Greg and Pozo grow into another fire personality . . . "they come right at you, no tricks, nothing fancy, just all-out assault."

My deep admiration for the courage of the firefighters who risk their own lives to save other lives, to save the forests and the flatlands, the structures, that are the fodder of the flames was already built-in. I have a recently retired Battalion Chief in my own family. I witnessed the majestic Tetons and Yellowstone on fire in 2001. But in One Foot In The Black, author Kurt L. Kamm took me right into the belly of the beast and revealed the very guts and personalities of the `Fire' and the men that go up against them in battle. I guarantee you; I'll never view a wild land fire or a firefighter in quite the same way ever again. One Foot In The Black is as compelling and timely a book as any you could read. With the changing climate, I'd venture to say, as you need to read.

Susan Haley, Author

RAINY DAY PEOPLE - A Novel

FIBERS IN THE WEB

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent Read/Great Insight into the Coming of Age of a Firefighter, July 20, 2009

By 

D. firefighter/emt "D." (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Foot In The Black: A Wildland Firefighter's Story (Paperback)

Most of the books I now read are from Christian authors and the perspectives are different. We live in the "real world" as firefighters and see people at the worst of times. It was good to read non-sugar coated material. I liked the accuracy of the fire service lingo, events. I've got the 18 "watch outs" right here on my desk.

One of the younger guys who saw me reading the book has already taken my copy to read. It's going to be good for us because I see the anger in him. You have reopened my eyes to look for the signs of the angry young men and I will try on my part to be a "TB" to them. Thank you for the book.

D. - firefighter/emt - North Carolina