Since firefighting represents one of the more dangerous occupations remaining in modern society, our culture tends to make heroes of its brave men and women in uniform—we cheer on their bright red trucks and trusty Dalmatians at hometown parades, venerate them for not only rescuing babies from burning high-rises, but terrified kittens from trees, and, most notably, as a country we lionized them as national martyrs in the wake of the tragedies surrounding 9 ⁄11. Yet while our gratitude toward firefighters charged with putting out building fires in populated residential areas and commercial districts (known as structural firefighters) appears infinite, as a largely urban people we tend to ignore the thankless work of the wildland firefighters of the U.S. Forest Service who spend their summers battling deadly flames from Montana to New Mexico. But, of course, containing a destructive fire as it burns out of control over thousands of acres of wooded wilderness surely invites comparison to the riskiest of human pursuits. Given its obvious dangers and lack of accompanying celebratory myths—after all, what five-year-old kid wants to play with a green fire engine?—what drives these firefighters of the West to chase black smoke, season after season, all while living in the isolated quarters of the American wild? According to Matthew Desmond’s gripping book, On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters, there are many reasons, but the penchant for risk, for seeking out what Erving Goffman once referred to as ‘‘where the action is,’’ does not necessarily rank as one of them. Desmond, a budding sociologist who spent his college summers working for the Forest Service as a wildland firefighter in northern Arizona, turned his final season into a reflexive ethnographic journey in which his constant companion was a field notebook tucked into his Nomex flame-resistant fire pants. Embracing the spirit of participation observation in the most literal way possible, Desmond tirelessly