About Caroline Paul:
Caroline Paul is an American writer of fiction and non-fiction. She was raised in Connecticut (her father was an investment banker, her mother a social worker), and educated in journalism and documentary film at Stanford University. She worked as a journalist at Berkeley public radio station KPFA before (in 1988) joining the San Francisco Fire Department, as one of the first women hired by the department. She worked most of her career on Rescue 2, where she and her crew were responsible for search and rescue in fires. Rescue 2 members were also trained and sent on scuba dive searches, rope and rappelling rescues, surf rescues, confined space rescues, all hazardous material calls, and the most severe train and car wrecks.
Fire taps something ancient and vital in each of us, something both snarling and reverential.
Caroline Paul