Tales from the Station

I live a fair amount away from the station and very rarely get to drive any of the fire trucks. This is very frustrating for me since I attend so much training and I don’t get to use it as often as I want. For example, I attended a pump operators training and for weeks I learned about friction loss, hydrodynamics, pressure relief valves and all kinds of pump related issues. I didn’t get to drive a truck to a call for over a year so all I could do was run the pumps on Monday nights during weekly radio and siren check. Even then, I get moving water and someone comes along and takes over.

One beautiful Sunday morning we get toned out for a mutual aid call for a working structure fire at a large industrial building. I run to the station and the truck is still there! Unfortunately, it is a brand new 9 speed manual shift monster that I was not familiar with and didn’t want to learn on the fly. Another firefighter shows up and looks at me saying “I can drive but I don’t know how to run the pump!” I said “You drive and I’ll run the pump” and we took off. We could clearly see this was a fire of all fires with the smoke coming up on the horizon.

I went through everything in my head as we ran with lights and sirens going. I was going to set the hard suction, tie off the strainer, run the pump off the tank while priming to get the water flowing, etc… I had a great plan going. We showed up and saw this huge monster of a fire facing us with a belching column of black smoke reaching to the sky. As I was pulling off a section of hard suction another firefighter taps me on the shoulder and says “Pack up, they need smoke divers!”

I took one more look at the truck as another firefighter took my spot at the panel and started priming. I thought “I was supposed to do that!” as I grabbed an air pack. I put on my air pack and joined the interior attack teams and went in to the devil’s lair. We had a close call that day due to a miscommunication. We made our entry and were just starting to knock down the fire when an aerial truck started pumping water on the roof.

The roof gave out with six of us inside fighting this fire. That is something I’ll never forget as my whole world went up in flames. We were surrounded by fire and the only thing I remember is all six of us screaming “GET OUT!” at the same time. We came pouring out the doors stumbling over each other as other firefighters yanked us outside.

To add insult to injury they nailed us with their hoses. I don’t know what we looked like when we came out but some of the other firefighters said we were literally smoking. My gear did its job because I didn’t feel a thing. I was still sitting there soaking wet with that stunned “I can’t believe that just happened” look on my face as some other firefighters started screaming bloody murder. They wanted to hunt down the officer in charge of the aerial truck and do him bodily harm.

To calm everyone down we were taken off the line and checked out by the EMT’s. We had to sit in the ambulance for a half hour while our blood pressure and tempers calmed down. With a clearance from the EMT’s I headed back to the line to find the fire was just about out. I was putting my air pack back on when an assistant Chief ordered me to take it off and sit out the rest of the fire. I took my pack off and thought “I can run the pump!” I headed back to the truck to find six guys and a gal occupying every spot on the truck. Totally deflated I headed back to the staging area to sit out the rest of the fire. I had only fought the fire a total of five minutes and I’ve been ordered off the line with nothing to do.

This is when the ladies auxiliary showed up with sandwiches and drinks for everyone fighting the fire. I tell you there is nothing better than a mass produced sandwich and we sent one of our firefighters over to get some. There is still a picture floating around of him holding a dozen sandwiches in his hand at the perfect angle where he looks like he’s trying to take a bite. We had a sandwich or two and then it was all over.

We packed up our equipment and loaded hoses before heading back to the station. I had to take off my gear before getting back in the truck. I didn’t realize I was covered from head to toe in soot and I wasn’t allowed in the brand new truck until I was presentable. Most people spend Sunday morning in church or relaxing. I spent that Sunday morning fighting the fire of all fires and barely survived the ordeal, that’s the life of a firefighter.