Hotshots are the most elite firefighters in the world. Director Gabriel Kirkpatrick Mann spent 6 years on the fireline, shoulder-to-shoulder with them amidst the worst wildfires in California history, yielding the most terrifying and stunning footage ever captured in wildland fire. In the male-dominated world of wildland firefighters, Hotshot follows the lone female member of the Texas Canyon Hotshots, providing a unique view into the arduous and thankless job of fighting wildfire by hand in the most rugged and remote areas of the American wildlands. Hotshots are like a throwback to the old west. Grizzled, bearded, fueled by chew tobacco and gallows humor, they face death on a daily basis.
The film peels the lid back on this unique community of firefighters and captures the danger, the camaraderie, and loss that they all experience in one of the most compelling and difficult jobs on earth. Hotshot also delves into the robust indigenous history of wildfire management in the West, the failures of bureaucracies that make the fires worse, and the burgeoning wildfire industrial complex that fuels the corrupt policies that haunt rural homeowners to this day.
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