Early the next morning at around 5:00am, Bishop wakes up feeling much better. Jersted is already up. He is melting some snow on a small portable gas stove inside the tent. He is going to make soup for breakfast. Climbers must drink as much liquid as they can and when they can because the cold, thin air at the top of the mountain is also very dry.

A little while later, Jersted is attaching a new gas cylinder to the stove, but something goes wrong. Suddenly, his beard is on fire. Bishop’s plastic oxygen mask also catches fire. His eyebrows and beard are burned. Jersted and Bishop desperately try to find a way out of the tent. They know that outside they can use the snow to put out the fire, and that outside there will be less oxygen to keep the fire burning.

Fire needs oxygen to burn, and because the climbers have been using extra oxygen inside the tent, the tent has become the best place to keep the fire going.