"Poison is the Wind That Blows," by C.W. Blackwell, in On Fire and Under Water, edited by Curtis Ippolito, Rock and a Hard Place Press, 2025.
Fighting forest fires is dangerous work. Our nameless narrator is volunteered to do it because he is in prison for killing a man who was looting his house, and he wants to be a firefighter when he gets out.
But this conflagration is more dangerous than most because Reed, who is in charge of the prisoners, is looting houses. He wants our hero to join his gang. If he gets caught, he's due for a longer sentence and no career. If he refuses, well, "Tragedies happen all the time."
Nicely suspenseful story.
