The Mallory Burn,

A fictional story, it starts with a summer job as fire lookout for Phil Mallory, who is fresh out of high school. The lookout tower is boring as he stares with binoculars at mountainsides hour after agonizing hour for weeks looking for a puff of smoke. Other areas of the forest have plenty of action and he is dying to join the crew fighting a regional fire, but nothing seems to happen for Phil. He longs for a fire to start in his area so he can be a hero and put it out himself. When a fire starts, forgets much of what he learned about fire fighting. After his inexperiance makes things worse, he realizes you should be careful what you wish for. In the long run he has rewarding experiances and learns valuable lessons about following the rules and sticking to training. The very enjoyable live action Disney movie, "Fire on Kelly Mountain" was adapted from this book.