Back to the Fire Stories

I have noticed that the readership of my blog has dropped drastically since I started narrating about my families history.  I hope it is because everybody that normally follows along with my postings is out enjoying these trailing days of summer but I presume it is in fact most people don't give a flying leap about my families Americana.  So with that part of billy blaze's life reported, lets revert back to some more of my fire adventures and when I run out of them to tell I'll start making crap up...

...on some most ordinary evening while lounging around at home the “bread and butter” call to any fire department sounded over my fire scanner setting on the dusty shelf. No one is ever allowed near that radio for fear they may accidentally turn the volume down, or worse, turn it off, so dust accumulates. It shrieked the alarm, “STATION 1 and 4, STRUCTURE FIRE!” Jumping into the old van, I peeled out my driveway, being extra careful not to crash into the other fire dudes and “dudettes” {< hickernism} (lady firefighters) responding from the other directions leading to the fire station. We all had our designated parking spots to slip into at our station. This well orchestrated parking plan of ours worked most of the time except when the weather was really cold and the front parking area was frozen over. Then it was every man or woman for him or herself. The front bay doors would magically open for us because my mom who had become the night dispatcher for our fire department lived directly across the street from the fire station. Her dispatching office window looked directly out the front of her house a short distance across the highway into the front of the apparatus bays. When she would see our responding car headlights coming from both directions; she would trigger the bay door opener, and then close her eyes hoping for the best during “parking time”. We would all scamper inside to our turnouts hanging on the wall waiting for us. They were always cold and stiff when you first donned them. The stiffness came mostly from the stale sweat and smoke smell that had permeated through them. Clamoring aboard the engine the adventure would finally begin.


On this peculiarly dark evening we were called to heavy fire involving the back portion of a single family dwelling. The scene-lights were raised, and began glowing brightly from the engines light towers that helped turn the darkness into daylight. We began the battle with the fire dragon. This dragon turned out to be more smoke then fire and it was quickly squelched with the “wet stuff.” After even the slightest battle with a dragon there is always a lot of cleanup to be done. Mopping-up is when we search through the burned areas looking for hidden fires and hot spots. When we come across one we extinguish them and look for valuables that we can recover for the homeowner before they get even wetter. Sifting through this fire rubble is often time-consuming and an arduous task, but one that we know needs to be done properly.

My dragon slayer buddy (partner) and I had just stepped outside the messiness of the fire for the first time so we could get fresh air bottles inserted into our air packs.  Just then the homeowner confronted me with, “Did you see my turtles?” By this time in my career I thought I had heard almost everything, but I answer back, “What sir?” He reiterated, “Did you see my turtles inside the house? There were four of them.” I’m sure with some tone in my voice, I told the guy, “No, we were pretty busy with a dragon; we weren’t really looking for turtles right then.” He motioned toward the destroyed back portion of the house and told me he had some turtles in an aquarium back there. Assuring him we’d look closer when we went back in, but not with much hope in finding the little suckers alive, I gathered up my partner and we headed back inside for “the great turtle search”. At the time I had forgotten that turtles are direct decedents from dinosaurs and they probably would stand a better chance during a fire… then say… a hamster. [not to mention they wear armor or nature’s turn-outs]

Even with our scene-lighting glowing brightly outside there are always dark places hiding things in the shadows of a burnt home, which is a good thing because it means some of the walls are still left standing. I collected my partner, Jeff, and headed back inside and into one of those dark corners where I started feeling around thinking to myself, “Oh, my God, I’m looking for turtles,” when, even with my thick firefighting gloves on, I feel something that feels about the right size for an aquarium. Throwing off the broken sheet rock which had gotten wet and crashed down onto the top of the thick glassed aquarium, I reach over the top lip and felt around inside. To my surprise I pulled out 1, 2, 3, then suddenly four and five dripping wet turtles. Quickly snatching up a big, partially-melted Tupperware container from all the mess, I toss them into it. Thinking to myself, “Hmmm, I thought there was only suppose to be four turtles in here” but then surmising that we all know what those turtles had probably been doing in that aquarium, don’t we? Being that there was quite a bit of debris on the floor it was difficult to negotiate across it with the big container with little light from the outside affording a pathway.

We stepped out into the glowing light with our big surprise for the homeowner, his prized… turtles. He peered into the container then looked back at me with almost a disappointed look in his eye, “Where’s the big one?” he implored. I replied, “Hey man, you told us there were four and look- we found five.” He tells me then, “No, there’s another tank just a ways further around the wall— he’ll be in that tank.” By now, I was somewhat tired and my patience was wearing a bit thin, but we did always try to go that extra mile to please homeowners since they were the ones that paid for everything our volunteer fire department owned with their tax dollars.

Regathering my composure, Jeff and I headed back inside again, but this time with a flashlight. Stumbling back through and over the debris and around to the darkest corner— Jeff was not helping too much with the flashlight—he was more interested in seeing the damage the fire had caused and not the big turtle hunt. Feeling around, feeling around, yep, I got something. Throwing the fallen debris aside that was covering the cracked tank I peered inside, but the water was too murky due to the gunk floating in the tank. With my gloved hand I once more plunged it into the tank’s water and began feeling around and finding something solid I pulled it out. “Hey, shine that light over here—dang-it—ahh, it’s just a big chunk of wood— I throw it over my shoulder. Back into the slimy water I grope till, suddenly, I feel something bite down on my fingers. Not that nipping kind of bite that you might get from a small cute puppy, but that kind of pain you would get from slamming-your-hand-in-the-car-door kind of bite. Screaming at the top of my lungs, like a girl, I jerked my hand out of the tank.  Jeff finally decided to shine the light in my direction to see what all the commotion was about. Hanging from my hand is a big, Frisbee-sized turtle. Nooo, definitely not like the quaint little river turtles I had just saved from the first tank. This looked more like an African Snapping Turtle from Hell. It didn’t have those cute little octagonal markings on its shell. This monster had fricking spikes protruding from its thick turtle shell. Grabbing its shell with my free hand I tried to pull it off  before it gnawed off my trapped, gloved fingers. The harder I pulled on its shell, in an attempt to free my throbbing digits, the longer its neck got and the harder it bit down. Realizing that I was in big trouble now, I stumbled towards the light outside around the fire engine and a fire axe, if needs be. My partner, my fellow dragon slayer, Jeff, was no help at all— he was now laughing too hard. I think he even dropped our only real light rather then using it as a weapon to beat this demon off my hand. Screaming, stumbling, falling and then screaming some more, I finally landed outside on the porch. Did any of my fellow firefighting buddies rush to my aid? Nooo, they, too, think this is the funniest battle they have ever seen and drop whatever they were doing to come watch.

Finally, I pried my fingers out of my thick fire-glove (did I mention turtles are descendants of dinosaurs?) and I threw that varmint to the ground, quickly counting my fingers to make sure they were all still there. A gasp comes over the assembled crowd of firefighters as they rush to see if the turtle is OK, as it crawled across the driveway with my glove still firmly in its mouth. I ask the homeowner, “What the hell kind of turtle was that?” and he tells me some sweet sounding Latin name. I know to this day it really translated to “African Snapping Turtle from Hell”.