Content Warning: This text features recurring discussions of sexual assault, sexual harassment, addiction, thoughts of suicide, sexism, death, loss of pregnancy, and various medical emergencies.

Cassie Hanwell, one of the few women working in the Austin, Texas, fire department, is the protagonist and narrator of Things You Save in a Fire. The novel opens at an award ceremony where Cassie is being presented with the valor award for single-handedly rescuing an entire busload of children after their bus crashed into a ravine the previous winter. She has been dubbed the School Bus Angel by her town and is the youngest person and only woman to be presented with this award. Just before the ceremony begins, Cassie’s partner, Hernandez, propositions her. Though she describes Hernandez as a ladies’ man, Cassie has no reason to believe that he would be interested in her and assumes it is one of her team’s usual pranks. Hernandez tries to convince her by noting that she is the loneliest person he knows, and Cassie begins to question his sincerity before seeing another member of her shift suppressing a laugh. Though Cassie is relieved that this was indeed a prank, the situation makes her think of her lonely yet orderly life and the empty apartment she will be returning to later that night.