Wildfire

Delphy is a major character in Wildfire, second only to Sam. She is a tall, physically strong 14-year-old girl. Like Sam, she is spending the summer at a camp in Maine. Her camp, called Calusa, is a girls’ fitness camp. Although Delphy is there to get better at volleyball and track, many of the girls who attend are trying to lose weight. Delphy is not overweight, but she is very insecure about her body. She is unusually tall for her age, and her worst fear is that she will “never stop growing” (140). Her height and strength may make her uncomfortable, but they are major assets in her fight to survive the fire. Even though her ankle is injured, she can move faster and lift heavier objects than Sam.

In some ways, Delphy and Sam are opposites. Delphy comes from a big family. She has two parents, younger twin sisters, and an extended network of aunts, uncles, and cousins who all live in the same area. In fact, they all work at the family’s Greek restaurant. Delphy certainly has problems in her own life, but she has the kind of familial stability and permanent community that Sam lacks but needs. Because she does not need to worry about some of the big problems that plague Sam—like grief, drug overdoses, and foster care—Delphy’s main sources of conflict in her personal life are her height and her romantic prospects. Those problems become less significant once she has to focus on surviving the fire.

Like Sam, Delphy is very resourceful and determined. While Sam has figured out how to drive the Jeep, it is Delphy who knows how to use a lever to push the Jeep off the tree and get it back on the logging road. She also remembers how to build an inclined plane after watching a program on the History Channel about how the Egyptian pyramids were constructed. She is more hot-headed than Sam is, often getting frustrated when things do not work out. Sam is more prepared to accept the problems that befall him, but Delphy responds to a lightning storm by “shaking her fist at the sky and screaming” (117). Delphy’s aggression saves Sam more than once, particularly when she knocks both of the bikers off their bikes. Likewise, Sam’s caution keeps Delphy from doing anything too reckless, like driving in the dark. The two characters, while foils in many ways, balance each other out, thus creating an ideal team for both survival and companionship.

Although neither of Sam’s parents appear directly in the narrative, they both have a major impact on his actions. Sam’s mother represents all of his hopes for the future. She is currently in substance abuse rehabilitation for prescription drug addiction, and she really wants to recover. Sam is very understanding of her situation. He acknowledges that, for her, recovery feels like “the hardest thing in the world” (141). Sam loves his mother, and getting to a phone so that he can tell her he is safe and alive is one of his most powerful motivators in Wildfire. Retrieving his phone is, in fact, the mistake he makes that causes him to get trapped in the fire in the first place. At the end of the book, both Sam and his mother take the steps that they need to survive. Sam escapes the fire, which inspires his mother to complete her substance abuse rehabilitation program.

Sam’s father died three years before the events of Wildfire. He was a trucker who took a job as a civilian truck driver for the US Army in Afghanistan. A Hummer crashed into the oil rig he was driving, causing it to tip upside down. Gasoline filled the cab, which then exploded, killing Sam’s father in 30 seconds or less. Sam feels partially responsible for his father’s death and still has a strong sense that he must live up to his father’s expectations of him. It was his dad who taught him many of the survival skills that keep him alive during the fire. Despite Sam’s extraordinary resourcefulness, he still thinks his father would be disappointed in him, not proud, because he “thought letting yourself get lost in the woods was really lame” (91).

Freddy Bell, known professionally as Phat Freddy Bell, is a radio broadcaster at a small station in rural Maine. His radio station is called WRPZ, 98.6 FM. He broadcasts from atop the “lowest official mountain in the great state of Maine” (7). For most of Sam and Delphy’s journey, Phat Freddy’s broadcasts are the only source of external information available to them on the emergency radio that they find in the cabin. From him, they learn about the severity of the fire and the unlikelihood of rescue. As the fire gets worse, they learn that Phat Freddy has siphoned the gas from his own car to power his generator in order to keep broadcasting, even though this puts him in mortal danger as the fire approaches.

Phat Freddy is the first and only friendly face that Sam and Delphy see on their journey. Rescuing him is the key to survival, reinforcing the theme of The Essentiality of Friendship and Connection. By relying on each other, the three of them make it to a safe point in the middle of the lake. Freddy is a source of expertise on the region, which is knowledge that Sam and Delphy lack. His directions give Sam the final piece of information he needs to get the three of them to safety. He is a minor character in that he only appears at the very end of the story, but his presence through his radio broadcast is notable throughout the book, as it serves as the only connection to the outside world.