Last month, I reviewed Earl Emerson’s INTO THE INFERNO.  I was hooked from the start and also dismayed that firefighters in certain areas have experienced situations like this after dealing with chemical fires. 

I am thrilled to choose Mr. Emerson as our May Author of the Month. 

Tracy:  Welcome to TRRC as our May Mystery Author of the Month.  It is my pleasure to have you.  Can you tell readers a little about yourself? 

Earl:  I've been writing novels for 35 years, a Seattle firefighter for 25 years, 21 as a lieutenant.  I work on a truck company, one of the rigs with a 100' aerial ladder, the Jaws of Life, and all the other specialty tools.  We get extra training in extrication, cave-ins, high-angle rope rescues and a lot of other areas.  In the past I've worked on engine companies, which carry mainly hoses and water.  I've published 18 books.  The first sixteen were in two different mystery series, the Thomas Black private eye books set in and around Seattle, and the Mac Fontana mysteries set in a small town very much like North Bend, where I live.  I love both jobs.  To be a writer was always my dream.  And being a firefighter is like being a Boy Scout and getting paid for it. 

Tracy:  Having read INTO THE INFERNO, I was shocked to hear this other side of firefighting, the repercussions that can happen after a chemical fire.  I know that this story was partially based on incidents from a fire in Montana, a story you’d heard about a fire in California and then events that happened to a crew you were relieving in Seattle.  Can you share more about what led to this story?  Have you received any negative response for bringing these events to light? 

Earl:  The genesis of INTO THE INFERNO came in my drill school twenty-five years ago.  We were having lunch when a chemical pesticide truck pulled into the occupancy next door to Seattle's Station 14.  Another recruit, a man who'd been a California firefighter and who'd transferred to Seattle, told me the chemical in the truck was the same chemical that had been in a barrel that had rolled off a truck in a rural California county several years earlier.  A crew of volunteer firefighters was dispatched to handle the barrel, and handle it they did---with their bare hands.  The barrel was unmarked and they didn't have the same training we get now, not that this couldn't happen now.  Within months six of these guys were brain dead in nursing homes.  I've never responded to a hazardous materials incident without thinking about that. 

I've been on a number of calls myself where things like this happened.  The section in INTO THE INFERNO concerning the rocket fuel company is lifted pretty much from an incident that happened to my crew when I was working on Engine 27 in Seattle.  Two firefighters standing on a hose line thirty feet from the rear of an overturned semi truck began to feel dizzy.  They hadn't gone into the truck and were only there as a precaution should the truck catch fire.  Their blood pressures skyrocketed to something like 240 over 180, and their pulse rates were bounding in the 150's.  There was nothing in the truck that might have caused this except an unknown product being shipped by a rocket fuel company out of San Jose.  When we called them, they denied vehemently that their product could cause these symptoms.  But then they were interested enough to send to representatives to Seattle four hours later.  They never did admit culpability. 

As far as repercussions for things I write?  People rarely come right out and say, "You wrote this so we're going to do this to you."  But there is some envy and I have insulted some higher ranking officers with portraits of people they think are them.  There are a couple of chiefs in Seattle who hate me and do me ill whenever they get the chance.  It's something you have to live with.  No big deal. 

Tracy:  How are those Seattle Firefighters doing now?  Have you heard any more about the Montana fire crew? 

Earl:  It took six months for the blood chemistry profiles of the Seattle firefighters to return to normal, although they were both back at work within a week or two.  One of them is happily retired and the other one, sadly, died in a fire with three comrades twelve years later. 

Tracy:  INTO THE INFERNO covers a lot of the aspects of firefighting, it goes beyond fighting fires.  True to life, firefighters do handle much more than just fires.  Do you find it difficult to write about the day-to-day activities of a firefighter? 

Earl:  The calls in most modern fire departments are 80 to 90 percent aid related.  Only ten percent concern fires or hazardous materials.  My job on a truck company is a little more varied, since the nearby engines catch the aid calls first.  We get car wrecks, people stuck in elevators, water jobs, lock-ins, lock-outs, securing buildings for the police.  You name it.  We once had to cut a pair of handcuffs off two people who were having sex while wearing them.  We see a lot.  INTO THE INFERNO was fun to write in that it delved into more aspects of firefighting than my previous book, VERTICAL BURN did.  I don't find it difficult to write about his stuff.  It's fun to write about.  And many of the scenes in my books come straight from calls I've been on.  The patient choking on the apple in the beginning of INTO THE INFERNO was a call I went on. 

Tracy:  The key element in INTO THE INFERNO that kept me hooked is John Swope’s battle with the mysterious illness to which he and his crew are succumbing.  As you wrote the book, did you know how it would turn out or was it a surprise to you? 

Earl:  When I was laying out the plot, I couldn't decide whether it would be better to have him end up brain dead or to have him recover somehow.  Of course, in your typical thriller the hero doesn't end up brain dead.  But I wasn't trying to write your typical thriller.  I wanted something a little different.  I wrote the ending both ways, but it wasn't until I was about to send the book in that I decided which ending to use. 

Tracy:  In one review for Mystery Ink Online you are cited as having an “audacious talent”.  I couldn’t agree more.  Do you feel bold when you are writing these books?  Are you ever surprised with the public’s reaction to your writing? 

Earl:  Do I feel bold?  That's a hard question.  I didn't feel bold when I was working as an unpublished writer for fifteen years, which was probably the boldest thing I've ever done.  I don't know what I feel when I take chances.  It's hard to describe.  I knew I was taking some chances with INTO THE INFERNO.  I guess I was surprised at how much people liked it.  The reaction has been fantastic, and that is gratifying. 

Tracy:  Every ounce of me is convinced that Hollywood will eventually turn INTO THE INFERNO into a blockbuster.  If you had the opportunity, who would you pick for the starring roles? 

Earl:  Don Cheadle for the black firefighter.  I love his work.  Brad Pitt for the lead, both for his panache and his ability to act.  I think he's highly underrated as a pure actor.  He was terrific in 12 Monkeys and Legends of the Fall.  I don't know who I'd like to see play the woman doctor.  I don't normally go in for the game of who-should-play. 

Tracy:  In one of your deleted openings to VERTICAL BURN, you mention an “incident” that the firefighter, John Finney, cannot get out of his head.  I suppose it is impossible for firefighters to not have one of those moments.  What is the one call that you cannot forget? 

Earl:  I have hundreds I'll never forget.  One was a rape/murder in which a young man was defending himself from another young man who tried to rape him at knifepoint.  The would-be rapist ended up with the knife planted in his chest.  We found him dead on the stairs leading out of his apartment, the other man on the parking strip with defensive wounds all over his arms.  He ended up going to prison for manslaughter.  Maybe the cops saw something we didn't, but it looked like self-defense to us.  A couple of weeks after that a woman stabbed her live-in boyfriend after he beat her up and then came back to beat her up again.  One knife wound in the center of the chest.  She went to prison, too.  Probably because she tried to hide the knife.  Maybe they had bad lawyers.  I remember this one too, because we screwed up handling the patient.  You remember the ones where you screwed up. 

Tracy:  You also have written two mystery series with Thomas Black and Mac Fontana.  You’ve taken a two book hiatus from those characters.  Will you return to them soon? 

Earl:  Maybe not soon, but I'll write them again.  Thomas Black will most likely come back first.  Ballantine has kept all eleven Blacks in print.  Sooner or later they'll want a frontlist title to complement that. 

Tracy:  If this question is not answered in the previous question, what are you working on next? 

Earl:  I'm working on a thriller about a crew on Ladder 3 where I work.  It's the weirdest experience, because in the past I've gone to the fire house to get away from writing and then gone home to get away from the fire house, and that has always worked out nicely because I don't have to think about the other when I'm away from it.  Now I come home from a shift on Ladder 3, sit down to my computer, and there I am riding Ladder 3 again.  It's actually quite bizarre.