the life and times of billy blaze: Happy Thanksgiving

Most of the stories on this blog are about some of my educational adventures over twenty three years as a Volunteer Firefighter with the Illinois Valley Fire Department and the last seven years with Rural Metro Fire in Grants Pass. I have been quite lucky fighting the beast all these years. I have only been seriously injured once in my career—at least so far. In the old days we did not wear the protective Nomex fire hoods all firefighters use today. Before the introduction of the flame-resistant hoods, our face, neck and ears were exposed to the mercy of the fire's heat and flames. Back in the day, we actually used the pain from the heat on our bare ears to indicate when it was getting too hot to be that close to the fire. When the blistering agony radiating from our thin-skinned ears got too intense to withstand any longer, that was when we knew it was time to retreat to a cooler location, normally outside the building.

On one occasion while I was fighting a fire in a fully involved kitchen, I heard something blowup just before I felt an excruciating pain grip me on the side of my face and neck. Some boiling-hot, thick material had just exploded onto me. I’ve heard that burning to death is the most painful way to go and I am inclined to believe it. I turned the fire hose on myself to wash the molten glop from the side of my face and neck. I staggered outside where I discovered the mysterious goo was just a can of creamed corn that had gotten so hot it exploded splattering the mushy contents onto my neck and ear. I loved those new fire hoods when we finally got them a few years later.

Besides the fact the new fire hoods helped protect our bare faces and necks from the flames, they also provided a level of anonymity from the general public when we wore them on a fire or accident scene. I truly enjoyed being able to walk down the street a few days after a big car crash knowing that the person limping towards me from the other direction was the very same person I'd helped get untangled from a car wreck just a few days earlier. But because my face had been obscured by my hood, they had no idea that I was one of the firemen who had helped save them.