Both research and media reports from the Swedish wildfires of 2018 has mainly dealt with the issue of acute disaster management and the firefighting of the forest that was burning. In this paper alternative stories about the wildfires are developed, where the acute crisis is understood in relation to other constantly ongoing, chronic, crises. The analysis is based on interviews with firefighters, volunteers and local citizens that were all involved with, or affected by, the wildfires. The purpose of this paper is to explore how an acute crisis is made sense of in relation to stories about chronic crises. From the empirical material three central stories emerge: 1) the one about the lack of resources, 2) the one about the right to public welfare and services and 3) the one about climate change, where even more wildfires are to be expected in the future. These three stories all share the storyline where the acute crisis (the wildfire) is understood in relation to two different, but constantly ongoing, chronic crises: the dismantling of rural welfare services and climate change. In sum, this brings important knowledge to how lived experiences from a disaster is framed as both a local and global issue.