"Structure Fire" blurts out over the radio

… the “Waiting4” part in my e-mail address is often times a long wait but it is always followed by the “Fire” part. Twelve thirty last night the alarm blares at the fire house. The stern sounding female voice over the radio informs, “STRUCTURE FIRE”. It jolts you from your slumber as you force back the sleepy fog from your mind. Now is the time you have to think clearly. Somebody’s life you don’t yet know, or your partners, or even your own life, may count on you being alert tonight. Tumbling out of bed, you head for that gear you seem to carry with you everywhere you go, your “turn-outs”.

Turn-outs are simply fireman jargon for the thick heavy clothing we wear on any house fire. It stands (literally sometimes because of the stench) next to the fire engines doors faithfully waiting for its own fireman to arrive for them. You have to put them on fast and in the right fashion. Sometimes it feels like there is a hundred buttons and snaps in which you have to fasten down on them before you are ready to roll. All the time you are eagerly listening to the radio chirp out the address and where you are headed, trying to trap those numbers in your mind. You also listen to the instructions from the dispatcher about any dangers that might await us upon arrival at our new adventure i.e. bad bridge leading into the house, mean dog that lives there, the dispatcher heard explosions in the background when the call was coming in.

When responding to the scene you look off in the distance towards where you would expect the glow of the fire to be located but your attention is quickly snapped back by the deer crossing the road in front of your fast approaching engine. With your fire booted foot pushing down hard against the accelerator; you still have to drive the heavy machine, your life line to the outside world, with great caution. Getting closer to the incident you try and recall those magic address numbers the dispatcher informed you of, as you were trying to awaken and before you actually pass the right driveway. You never want to have to hear the “BEEP, BEEP” of your back alarm on the truck, because you passed up the correct driveway. When people build houses, nobody ever plans that a fire truck may someday need to make it up their driveway quickly. The trees and shrubs are allowed to over-grow the road leading into one of their most valuable assets, but we squeeze through these types of driveways everyday. As you round the slight turn in the driveway the actual “Dragon” shows his face for the first time to you. With your B.A. (breathing apparatus) already donned before-hand while riding to the scene, you plug your air line into your face mask and take your first deep breath of bottled air. The air brakes set on the engine with a POOSH!! As you step down and ready for the battle.

You methodically walk around the front of the engine, you are looking (at least the best you can peering from a fogging face mask) for dangers to you, your partner and the lookie-lews that are ever present. Climbing up on the side of the engine you pull down the cross-lay (hose line) that was carefully packed so it will pull off the engine without snagging. Half trotting off with the hose line in your hands you stretch it out towards the beast; you knell onto one knee, almost in some kind of ancient salute to this fiery pest. With your fire nozzle in hand, you punch your fist into the air and in a face masked muffled voice, you scream for “Water”. The engineer, of course, can not hear your cry for water over the roar of the fire engine, crackling of the fire and confusion of the present moment. The engineer only needs to see that gloved fist of yours pound into the night air for him to know you want “the wet stuff” now. Bleeding the trapped air from your hose line, you want to actually see the “wet stuff” and feel its power before standing back up on both your feet and facing this demon: firefighter against beast.

The time comes in every fireman’s life where it is time to “put up or shut up”. Where it is time to "Rock and Roll".  All the uncountable hours of training and experience before hand needs to come out in you now. Within the first couple steps, tugging on the heavy water filled hose, you can begin to feel the heat of this dragon’s hot breath. Quickly sizing up what kind of dragon you have here you begin to herd him back into the black hole that he crawled from earlier. Sweeping away, his flaming tentacles licking on the side of the building with your fog stream, you let him know your not here to play. Pushing him around the back unlit corner of the garage you watch where he is trying to escape your reach  He tries to crawl into the attic of the structure. If you don’t notice where he slipped away soon enough he will explode out the far end of the building taunting you to catch him before he brings the whole building down in flames right in front of you. This is not my first dance with the demon. I know many of his tricks after thirty years of dueling with him. I narrow my nozzle to a straight stream and bounce water off the underside of the roof giving him the drink he couldn’t handle. By now the interior fire crew is forming outside the building, waiting to go meet this dieing gentleman up close and personal. Once inside they tear the tiles from the ceiling, daring him to lash out at them. Always one of the interior crew has a high pressure fire nozzle with them too. They beg for the wet dragon to show his ugly head.  Because they too want to give him some "slap down" and not give Blaze all the glory out behind the structure. The once raging fire quickly comes to a smoldering stop. The funny thing is this is when the work actually begins. Everything until now was just foreplay. Here is the time when a fire department becomes a hero or a heel. You have to clean up the mess you made from tearing down the ceiling, save what valuables you can before they get even wetter and reassure the home owner things are now under control again.

Once back at the fire station there are many links of fire hose to wash, dirty tools to clean and B.A’s to refill before your engine will be ready for the next call. Already the nights fire stories start being told among the crew.  By now it's three-thirty in the morning, it is time to go back and recheck the scorched building, to make sure you did not leave a baby demon ember burning somewhere in the destruction. You radio into dispatch after your first check “first check, no smokes” she replies “copy”. You have two more fire checks to go this crisp morning. You will get to watch the summer morning sun come up this Fourth of July, 2010. Has all the training I have completed, choking up smoke days later, being drenched in my own sweat been worth it over the past thirty years? ABSOLUTELY !!!