Lady Luck was kind and the plane came out into a small timber-covered valley. The fire was some distance away and Bill turned his plane towards it. He had enough ceiling under the smoke to fly around the fire without any appreciable danger. The first impression they had was that only a small area was in flames, but as they flew around it was apparent that this was a large fire. Bill had no idea how Kotok was going to locate it on his map. Just where they were, Bill did not know. He had lost his location when they went up through the smoke twenty or more minutes before.