Sarah Berns grew up on the East Coast of the United States in a family that valued academics and literature, and her parents expected that she would pursue some kind of cerebral, upper-middle-class career, just like her brothers. Instead, Berns chose to move west and become a wildland firefighter. In this story, Berns talks about what it’s like to be the lone woman on a fire crew, how she earned the respect of her peers, and how she balanced breastfeeding and firefighting. Plus, she talks about the surprising similarities between her first career as a smokejumper fighting wildfires and her second career as a doula assisting in childbirth.