Daniel Lyon Jr. strides up the sidewalk leading to the gym, arms swinging free in a short-sleeved blue T-shirt, a broad smile crossing his burn-scarred face.
Gone is the plastic mask that protected the skin grafts on his cheeks and chin. Gone are the heavy jacket and thick gloves that shielded his torso and hands.
Nearly one year after Lyon was burned over almost 70 percent of his body in Washington’s deadly Twisp River wildfire, his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes have grown back, he’s got a girlfriend — and he’s forging a new future.
“Each day, I’m able to do something that I couldn’t do before,” says Lyon, 26, the sole survivor of the wildland blaze that claimed the lives of three other firefighters, Richard Wheeler, Andrew Zajac and Tom Zbyszewski.
But the days and months since Aug. 19, 2015, have been harder than even Lyon likes to acknowledge. His buddies’ deaths have weighed heavy on his heart. And coping with his injuries has become a full-time job, an unexpected — and sometimes dreaded — occupation that will stretch years ahead.