Eric Hartley:A glimpse into hell on earth

Standing about 10 feet away from a wall of flames 80 feet high, Jason Spadaro suddenly felt very small.

He's been a volunteer firefighter since he was 17, but this was a different world.

Mr. Spadaro, who's now 23 and lives in Edgewater, was among 18 Maryland firefighters who returned Monday from two weeks of fighting wildfires in California.

They worked 13- to 15-hour days on the Whiskeytown fire, a 6,200-acre blaze in northern California near Redding. It was the first such western fire for Mr. Spadaro; veterans told him the mountainous terrain made it one of the toughest they'd seen.

This kind of work...