We were working at a local high rise apartment building for a fire on the 5th floor. I had arrived riding Irons on the truck and was assigned evacuation of the 4th floor. "Irons" was my riding position. My primary job would be forceable entry, prying doors, cutting hinges and basically breaking into anything we need to check for occupants and possibly even fire. Why would we have to go door to door in a building that's on fire ? Well,at most multi-family residential buildings, false alarms or burnt food calls are so common that most people learn to ignore the fire alarm and don't evacuate until we're pounding on their door. And the most common phrase uttered in embarrassment as they frantically shutter out the door is, "I thought it was another false alarm." Another good one is "I didn't hear the fire alarm"....(I think they actually expect us to believe them.) Then, there are those lovely people who are totally ignorant towards us and refuse to leave until they are threatened with being arrested. (Yes, we really can do that)
And, of course, there are the doors no one answers....these we have to force. In laymen's terms, we break into the apartment to make sure it's not on fire and no one is home. Some times you find them asleep and as you can probably imagine, they're pretty shocked and at first pretty pissed off that your standing in their apartment. But they too eventualy make their way out. So basically the job is kinda like a Cracker Jack box cause you never know what's kind of "prize" is behind each door.
My partner on this call was a guy we called "Shleprock" or "Shlep" for short. Shlep was a damn good fireman one of the best I've worked with and strong as an ox too. He would carry any tool he could grab along with what was required for his riding position. We made the 4 story hike with all our equipment and decided we would work our way from one end of the hallway to the other, Shelp on one side and myself on the other.
We make our way down the hall pounding on doors & telling the tenants of the fire upstairs and that they need to leave their apartments. We decide skip forcing the doors with no answer until after we clear the rest of the floor and just continue on our way pounding in doors and clearing the floor if its tenants. When get to the end of the hall and are about to work our way back down the hall clearing the 3 or 4 "empty" apartments when we suddenly hear loud dance music. It's the kind of techno stuff they play at dance clubs. Shelp walks up to one of the doors that no one answered and in a puzzled voice says "It's coming from in here." As I approach him at the door, the door across from the one with the music opens, and a little old guys pokes his head out for a second then shuts the door.
Shlep, even more puzzled asks "Didn't you check that one?"
Now just as confused as him, I nod and walk upto the door with the little old man behind it.
I beat on it again, and Shlep starts pounding on the door with the music.
The little old guy opens his up again and asks what's going on. I tell him about the fire and that he needs to leave the building. He then, steps past me to tap on Shleps arm to get his attention. Shlep, still pounding on the door across the hall, turns and says "Someone's in there... I hear laughing...it sounds like a girl."
And the Little old man says, "Those two are a wild bunch....they probably won't answer the door so save your energy and quit making all that racket."
We all chuckle, then I set my tools down in the hall to help the old man collect his meds and start out of the building and Shlep, well, he was still pounding on the door, still with music blasting, and no answer.
At this point, we're getting pissed. We know theres someone in there and we've beat on the door loud enough that someone actually made a report on the radio from the fire floor that they can hear someone pounding. It's at this point we decide to force the door. So as I begin to I turn away from the door and grab the rabbit tool (small hand pumped hydraulic ram for forcing doors open) I hear the music get softer and then the latch on the door click. So I turn around to to see the door open up and standing there, in nothing more than an un-tied white silk robe and small (very small) black panties, is a gorgeous blonde. Then, from in the room behind her, I hear another girl ask "Who's here?" And just then a gorgeous brunette comes out of a room into view of the door. She is also wearing an untied robe and small (very small) red panties and sipping on a glass of wine.
In a provocative tone of voice, the blonde answers "They're firemen."
The brunette shoots back with a "Oooo really?....can we keep them?"
Now I can only imagine the look on our faces as we stood in a state of shock and in total awe of what was before us. I mean, when clearing a floor at a high rise fire, the last thing any fireman would expect to open the door is a scantily clad women of Playboy centerfold caliber, let alone two of them.
As I fumble to hold my tools while I pick my jaw up off the floor, Shlep utters "Good evening ladies, we're here to let you know that there a fire upstairs and that you should evacuate."
The Blond runs here hand softly down the side of Shleps face and says to her friend "They're here to save us..."
The brunette, now also standing in the door replies "Well I didn't call them but since they're here, I could use some good mouth to mouth...."
They both giggle, then the blonde, starts to stroke Shleps roof hook and adds ".....and it seems they both brought their "tools" with them."
The brunette then jumps in and starts to unclasp my coat and says "....do they have their suspenders.....firemen are sooo much hotter with suspenders on...."
Then she tugs on my coat, pulling me across the threshold and into the apartment, giggles then says "I think we'll be safer if you two stay here, after all, the only thing better than smoke detectors is having your own fireman."
The blonde quickly adds, "And we have two of them, one for each of us."
Now by this point, I dunno what the hells going on.....we came up to clear a floor and some how ended up in the beginnings of a Letter to Penthouse, and the building is still actively burning. We do our best to maintain some level of professionalism, but its hard to keep a though straight as your mind takes off in a thousand different directions as you try and figure out what the hell is going on. Not that we needed help figuring out what it appeared they wanted, but I mean really, when does shit like this happen in real life?
Anyway, Shlep tells them again, "Ladies, we're flattered, we really are, but this isn't a joke, there is a fire upstairs and we need to get you out of the building."
The blonde, now with a slightly surprised look on her face, has picked up on the urgency amongst the crackling in Shleps voice and shoots back "Really!?..... Oh my god! Are you serious!?" Then turns to the brunette and says "We better get going, maybe next time....."
At this point, both women, from what we told them and the radio traffic, realized that this in fact isn't another false alarm but an actual fire. They hastily run back into a bed room, shut the music off and throw on some close, then make their way out of the apartment and down the hall. Only stopping for a moment to thank us and invite us back when there isn't a fire. Then they each gave us a hug and a kiss and off they went.
Now back in the hallway, we just stood there & watched them leave. As the stairwell door closed behind them Shlep turned to me and asked "Did that really just happen."
"I think so Shlep....but I'm not totally sure?...." I answered.
We then quietly went about our business clearing the last two apartments, then reported to command that the floor was clear and waited for a new assignment. A few minutes later the fire was reported out so we gathered up our tools and returned to the rig.
A few guys asked how it went, obviously curious as to if we ran into anything out of the ordinary. We told them it was just the usual idiots. But obviously the looks on our faces told a different story. Even one if my Asst. Chiefs could tell something was up and relentlessly hounded us while we cleaned up to find out what happened but we kept brushing him off too. After all, how do you explain that? It wasn't until after we got back to the firehouse and were cleaning up that we told them about our little encounter. Some of the guys believed us, others didn't, and quite honestly, I can't say I blame the ones that didn't. In fact, had I not been there, I probably wouldn't believe it myself.
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