Working in a fire lookout tower in the middle of a wilderness area takes a hardy type of person, one who can work with no supervision, and is able to survive without any other human interaction.

A fire lookout (partly also called a fire watcher) is a person assigned the duty to look for fire from atop a building known as a fire lookout tower. In this case, the tower is the main characters home while on duty. The main character is Henry.

The Yellowstone fires of 1988 have been described as being instrumental in the public’s understanding of the role of fire in ecosystems.

In June of 1988, park managers and fire behavior specialists allowed 18 lightning-caused fires to burn after evaluating them, according to the fire management plan. Eleven of these fires burned themselves out, behaving as many fires had in previous years.

The spring of 1988 was wet until June, after which hardly any rain fell. Park managers and fire behavior specialists expected that July would be wet, as it had been historically.

Henry meets his wife Julia, a professor at a bar, before falling in love with her, marries her, gets a dog and has a good life for the most part. Their relationship becomes dysfunctional as Julia unfortunately gets early-onset dementia, which develops into Alzheimer's Disease. To escape, Henry takes a job in the wilderness of the Two Forks Lookout but sometimes regrets his decision.

A month after his first day at work, strange things begin happening to him and his supervisor Delilah, which connects to a conspired mystery that happened years ago. Henry interacts with Delilah using a walkie-talkie.

Henry and Delilah become entangled in a slowly unfolding mystery, which grows from a simple infraction of park rules – kids letting off fireworks – to a paranoid, all-consuming plot. This mystery motivates all of Henry’s tasks and movements: he’ll talk to Delilah, she’ll send him somewhere, he’ll explore the park, complications typically ensue.