VIDEO/PHOTOS: Longtime firefighter Dan Steffensen picks up the brightly colored orange book, holds it in his hands, flips through the pages and lands on a spot to read aloud.
“I had to remind him that he was strong,” Steffensen said. Those were words said to him at a critical time in his recovery in the summer of 2021 when he was badly burned while fighting the Harris Hill fire north of Joliet.
That day, the winds changed, and he was met with a wall of fire. He was rushed to Salt Lake City to recover from his extensive burns, learning to eat and walk again, healing mentally as well as physically.
Fast forward three years later, and his story now lives in the pages of a book titled “Burned Over! The Survival of Montana Firefighter Dan Steffensen".
It took 21 months for Steffensen and Montana author A.J. Otjen to tell it.