OK Kid, it's Show Time

As I begun to become more rooted in the fire service, I began taking classes, the first of which was "Junior/Rookie Fire Training"  This is the basic of basic fire courses for the probie. It consist of ladders, Hose and SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus....in civilian terms thats the air bottles and mask we wear.)   Each subject was broken down into 3 parts wich taught you how to use/work with these tools on scene.  It was a good class and my first real  "test" at being a fireman.. I had to" trow" (place in if need be extend) ladders, pack & roll what seemed like miles of hose, and learn to operate, understand and use the SCBA, all things you would need to know on to work on scene....I could officially do more than just hit the hydrant.
  As the days turned into months, I would attend drill every month to learn new things, I would read the fire magazines that came to the station to learn new techniques. I was on the way to being ready, ready to make my way into a house fire even if it was the guy at the front door flaking hose (laying the hose out at the front door and helping to push the hose into the house for the guys on the nozzle)   I had the minimum 3 requirements at my station to be an interior fire fighter, now all I needed was the call.
      It was common, when I had free time to spend it at the firehouse. constantly doing something, even if it were just polishing up the engines. And like clockwork, I would stop at the local convenient store and get a drink. One day as I'm paying, i hear it.....it starts as with a loud humming sound and quickly climes to an mistakable scream. It's, the fire whistle, we've all heard one. Only this time it meant something...my heart about jumped out of my chest as I just threw the money at the clerk and took off out the door like a bat out of hell. I raced to the land yacht I was driving at the time then sped the 1/8 of a mile to the fire station. In that short distance, my mind races....I wonder what it is?!  Judging from the time of day, it could be an car wreck, or probably that automatic fire alarm we've been running in station 87's area all week. As I pull into the parking lot i notice only 2 other vehicles, and don't sense any real urgency, so my run into the station turns to a jog. As I come through the door I see this older guy with glasses and a cigar standing there with his fire coat under his arm and his white helmet on with this serious yet some what puzzled look on his face. It's Bill, my First Assistant Chief.
   Now what you need to understand is when I got into the service, there were guys in the 60's and 70's who were still running calls, especially in your small town volunteer fire departments, usually they would just drive, or make the hydrant connections. But Bill was a little different than them,  he had the experience to back up the fact that he was Assistant Chief. Bill was a big part in standardizing formal fire fighter training in the volunteer fire service. Simply put, when it comes to firefighting, this man knows his shit.
 I calmly ask bill we're we're going as I hear someone fire up the engine.
"Station 3's area...for a house fire, get on"
I run to my locker and frantically step into my boots, grabbed my coat and helmet and took off for the engine. I hope on and immediately put on my nomex hood (fire retardant hood that covers the head and neck) and my coat then i notice the engine starts moving, and no one else has gotten on the engine. It's just me, Bill in the officers seat (front passanger) and the guy driving was Al. Bill screams at me to start getting ready, so I sit back into the jump seat and begin putting my SCBA on. Now Station 3s area is only about 1/2 mile from the station so no sooner that I get my air pack strapped on we're stopping, and  I hear Bill on the radio report heavy smoke showing, followed by Station 3 acknowledging the call....then it hits me.....no one else is in rout yet....it's just us and theres only 3 of us. Now my mind is really racing....how in the hell are we going to do this?!
 I make my way off the engine and Bill screams "Stretch that hand line!" So I grab the 200 foot long neatly bundled pile of hose and pull, leaving a 150 foot long pile of spaghetti on the ground at the side of the engine. I frantically take off for the front door and lay the nozzle on the ground on the porch then rush back to untangle the spaghetti I left at the engine.  Bill is already there and has it all but completed. He pauses steps over to me and says  "OK kid, it's show time, stay low, breath from the floor, hit it hard and don't make me have to come drag your ass out, now get in there and put that fuckin fire out!"
I nod and head for the porch, my heart ready to pound out of my chest, dodging the jumping hose line as it's charged with water and quickly wonder what the hell he meant by "breath from the floor".  As I reach the nozzle and neel down next to it and reach for the mask thats hanging around my neck, only it's not there....holy shit!.....i didn't grab the mask when i put my air pack on...oh my god did I fu*k this up....Bills going to kill me. As I turn to look Bill yells "What the hell are you waiting for, get in there" And before as I can tell him about my lack of face piece, it's hits me....breath from the floor.
   You see in a fire, there are whats called thermal layers. If you could take a room thats on fire, pause it and cut it in half, you would see different layers in the smoke from the ceiling down to the floor where you will find "fresh(er)" air. Each layer has differnt thicknesses, different looking smoke, and a different teprature, with the ceiling being as high as 1200 degrees F. It's actualy really neat looking...
   But that was the key....breath from the floor. The cleanest somewhat smoke free air would be the first few inches above the floor.
   I take one deep breath of out side air, grab the knob (nozzle) and start down what to this point in my short fire service career, was the most ominous looking hall way.  With rolling dark black and grey smoke from the ceiling down to about 3 or 4 feet off the floor and every so often you'd notice a flash of orange like the tip of the devils sword. Now as I start down the hall way, hunched over a little bit to see under the smoke, and I as I get closer to the room thats burning the heat and smoke start getting lower and lower, slowly forcing me to a crouch. Now when your in and or near the fire room you hear the crackle and hiss of the fire, breaking glass, and the sound of things falling to the floor, but at the same time you could practically hear yourself think.
       As I shuffle my feet down the what seemed to be the worlds longest hallway, and a few  feet to the door to the fire room, I stumble and fall face first into the wall. As I hit the wall, the nozzle that Im holding at waist height digs into my gut, forcing every bit of breath out of me and pushing the bail forward (the lever on top of the nozzle that turns the water flow on and off) and I get blasted in the face with water, knocking my helmet off.  I scramble to shut the bail and try to hold what breath I have left, then get my face as close to the floor as possible to catch my breath. So far, it's not exactly the "ideal" fire attack.  But I hold back a few coughs, take another breath and turn for the fire room to see one of the most amazing sights. The fire room, was roughly 14 ft by 16 ft and appeared to be a living room, with a couch on the opposite side of the room fully engulfed in flames along with just about everything around it.  The radiant heat hits my face and kinda duck away andI hurry to pull my hood up as far as possible and fold down my face shield to protect myself from getting burned. I get set on my feet and open the nozzle up point it at the ceiling and draw a "Z" from the ceiling down across the fire to the floor, just like everyone had told me. The room begins to darken down and and the fire begins to hiss and crackle louder at me, almost as if I pissed it off. Then this cloud of steam filled smoke hits me, and I burry my face in the crook of my elbow to protect my face but my ears begin to burn in a pain that was best described by a friend as "a hundred bee's stinging you in the same spot at the same time" ....god it hurts like hell.  I try and hold out but I'm starting to feel like it might be time to get the hell out when I hear this loud crash of glass. I peak out of my arm to see that someone had broken out the window from the outside pulling the heat, steam and smoke away from me. I notice a silhouette standing in the smoke filled sunlight. It's Bill who hollers "You alright kid?"
I give him a quick nod yes and he continues "Good!, now finish putting that out, then let the guys from 3 clean it up"
I open the nozzle back up for a few short minuets, working my way closer to what ,was the "heart" of the fire, blasting anything the even remotely looks like it's on fire. Then I shut off the bail, and look over to the window at Bill who tells me to leave the line there and come on out.
  On the way out, I notice things I had walked right past and didn't even see on the way in, like a set of stairs leading to the upper floor and i notice that the mile long hallway I forced myself down a few minuets earlier wasn't more than maybe 15 ft long. I continue to make my way out passing a few guys from Engine 3 rushing to get to the fire room to mop up what was left.  Bill greats me at the front door, and with a grin says "You alright kid?...you look like shit."
I simply nodded yes because by now the coughing that I had been fighting back had caught up to me and I feel as if I was going to hack a lung up right there on the porch. It feels like what you get with a nasty chest cold, you know, that kind of burning and scratchy feeling when you cough.  And the boogers....holy hell.....you wouldn't think that the human nose could contain so much mucus. And all of it black with soot and smoke. On top of all of that lovely stuff  there's the headache you get, not to mention your ears are still stinging.....but when you step outside and start taking all the gear off...the outside air feels so cool and even in the 80 degree heat steam pours off your body.
  I make my way over to the engine, Bill hands me a bottle of water and says, "Well kid, you finally got your cherry popped.....hows it feel?"
I was so physically spent, it was all I could do to give him the biggest grin, and to some one like him who's practically written the book on how to do it, the look on my face says it all.
"You did good kid......you did good"
I had made it...I had officially been baptized into the world of Old man Fire....I had taken on the beast and won....and I did it by my self...with the help of one of the best "coaches" I could have ever asked for.  I was officially a fire fighter.....as my career continued I would realize there's a lot more to it, but for now, I was on top of the world.

The Childhood Dream

Every man can remember when they were a boy wanting at some point in their life to be a fireman. Sliding the pole, riding on the big red fire truck racing through traffic, and getting there just in time to save the day. I have met a lot of adults who secretly deep inside wanted to ride the fire truck with the kids when it shows up at a birthday party. And why wouldn't you....after all when you were young they were one of the coolest things in the world....but As little boys grow, life starts taking shape and we tend to loose sight of the little dreams we had as children. For some boys it was an "army guy" others, a police officer, for me, it was a fireman.
  It wasn't until somewhere in my junior year of high school that I decided to give that dream a shot and joined the local volunteer fire department, Engine Company 13.  At the time, it seemed pretty cool and hey, why not at least Im doing something good, Little did I know that it would become not just a hobby, but a life style.
  For someone young and new in the fire service, or a "probie" (probationary fireman) as their called in the service, there is a lot to learn. From dispatch and radio communications, to LDH (large diameter hose) and SCBA's (self contained breathing apparatus). It doesn't take long to realize there is a whole lot more to it than just "put the wet stuff on the red stuff". So you study tool locations on the rigs,hang out at the station waiting for that fire whistle to blow, working on the rigs or what ever you can to help out. Then after you get a taste of firefighting and you decide that this is in fact what you want to do. It is at this point you accept the fact that at some point you are going to see first hand the worst life has to offer, only you have no idea exactly how bad that is, you know that there will be late nights followed by long days at work and you know that from here on out, there will be missed birthdays, missed anniversaries, missed holidays and a host of other important dates in your life that you will miss and never get back.  Basically, when you become a firefighter, you agree to give up part of your life that you haven't even lived yet.