I was at the opening of the new Cheyenne mall to see a performance by Clayton Moore, the one and only Lone Ranger.
Clayton, I am guessing is in his early 70's. He is wearing a tight blue jumpsuit with a giant set of six-gun belt hung low over his hips. He is wearing a set of wrap around Foster Grant sunglasses due to the Lone Ranger Mask being trademarked for the new release of the Long Ranger movie.
There will only be one Lone Ranger and that is Clayton Moore. I am so amazed at what he can do with both six guns, but my eyes keep wandering over to the very tight jumpsuit he is wearing and his large sunglasses.
One day, I will have to retire, and the Lone Ranger makes me wonder if I will make the right decision when the time comes. I want to think that I would not be the guy that would stay longer than I should but, in all honesty, I am not sure.
Firefighting has been the great love of my working life. It's hard to imagine a day when I would decide to retire.
If a Firefighter stays too long, it is not just a matter of looking rough in your tight blue jumpsuit. The cost of a Firefighter staying too long can cost a life.
Engine 2203, 2201, 2223, respond to a structure fire on 120 Tenth Street.
I take a quick look out of the station window in direction that the structure fire was just paged out. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, there is a huge black plume of smoke going straight up in the cool fall morning air.
It always takes a minute to register. Most of the structure fires that are reported are false alarms, burned food, backyard BBQ's and the small kitchen fire that was put out by the homeowner. There is no mistaking the big blacker header I am looking at. This is a working structure fire.
"Real Deal" I tell the crew as they file past me to get on the engine.
"There is a big black header, I can see from here."
There is no mistaking the big black header I am looking at, that is a confirmed structure fire.
I am collecting my thoughts and running my DWARF drill.
Dispatch – what the emergency I am being dispatched to?
Where is it located?
Arrival – What do I see when I get there.
Resources - what are we going to need to mitigate this?
And last but probably most important - my homage to Murphy's Law, Mr. Murphy what are you going to do to
Fuck my plan up?
We have a good crew on today, all experienced professionals. I look over and see Dick pulling his bunker pants on. Dick is older than me and is making the transition to retirement. All of us have a deep appreciation for his years of service and his experience level. We all know that each one of us is going to face that transition to retirement. I see a light sweat on Dick and it puts an ice ball in the middle of my stomach.
The most important thing to me, is that we all go home today. I hope Dick retires soon because just now he reminded me that we are all mortal and I do not want to feel mortal right now. I want to feel like my training and crew will keep us all focused, aggressive when we need to be and safe. Dick, retire so I can admire and respect all of those years and not have to fear you on mornings like this.
Engine 2203, 2201, 2223, we are getting multiple calls.
Time of day, there must be someone in the house. It is too early on Saturday. We are less than a mile away and the unmistakable smell of a structure fire is in the air.
I remind Dick the hydrants are going to be on the corner and the house is the third house in. I have Jeremy and Chris on back and I remind them on the headsets to get into their air packs and to be deliberate about it. In the academy they teach you speed and that is a disservice. I want you to get them on slowly and deliberately. I slide into my air pack in the seat secure it and attach my facemask to the air pack. Dick is waiting for me to tell him to get started. I take a deep breath pick up the radio mic and let them know we are coming.
2203 Enroute Emergent Status 4, There is a black header in area of reported fire.
"Go slow" I remind Dick, we are less than a mile away. Speed here will only create more danger and risk here and not matter because the distance is so short. The incoming engine and command car will know there are only 4 of us. Four people is not enough for a working fire.
For everyone in the command car and engine, they will be listening hard to all of the radio traffic. I give quick assignments to everyone. I tell Jeremy to grab a hydrant. Dick will stop on the corner where the hydrant is. Jeremy will step up on the back of the engine and pull off a hydrant bag off and wrap 5-inch hose around the hydrant. When it is secure, he will put his hands up in the air and Dick will position the engine where I direct him to. Chris will pull the hose line off the truck behind the pump panel (the cross lay) and make sure there are no kinks in it so when the hose line is charged it is not a knotted mess.
As we pull onto 10th street, I see a confirmed structure fire and a large truck pulling a fully involved van out of burning garage. I have two confirmed separate fires and unless I can get the police officer to stop him, I may end up with more than that.
DWARF should be FDWAR because today the F for what can fuck up my plan is happening first thing, here is the man pulling a burning van down the driveway of a fully involved structure fire. The police officer is walking towards the engine, and I am waving at him to come to the engine.
2203 Arrival, Single Story Single Residence, confirmed structure fire, a vehicle fire in front of the residence, confirming occupant status - 10th street command, I will be doing a walk around.
The police officer is at the engine, and I tell him we need the guy to stop pulling the van down the street and unhook the chain from his truck if he can and pull way and park. Jeremy is waving the engine forward and I tell Dick to position the engine at the corner of the house.
I glance back and see Jeremy hooking up the 5-inch hose to the hydrant and Chris pulling off the cross lay. I am do a quick walk over to the driver of the truck pulling the van.
"Is this your house?" I ask him and he confirms it is.
"Is there anyone else in the house?"
"No, my wife and daughter are out shopping, it's just me."
The attack line is off the engine and the five-inch hose is up and running to the engine. I tell Chris and Jeremy to put a quick knock on the van fire and then we will turn our attention on the house.
I walk around to the back of the house to get a view from the back. From the front it appears that only the garage is on fire but here I can see fire coming from two sets of windows on the main floor. The house looks fully engaged. A man is walking towards me with a garden hose from next door. I tell him to not attempt to put the fire out and ask him to evacuate his residence.
"10th Street Command"
"Go Ahead" says the dispatcher.
"House is unoccupied per the owner, we are going to get a quick knock down on the van fire and then attack the house fire."
In an air pack a disciplined fire fighter has about 10 -15 minutes of work before he will have to exit the fire to change his bottle. If one firefighter exits, the entire team leaves. Only two rotations per firefighter and I am starting to calculate how far engine 01 is away. Chris and Jeremy are packed up and I lean forward and tell Chris to get a quick knock on the van fire so we can start working on the house. He nods and him and Jeremy advance a charged hose line to the van.
With one eye on them I do a quick walk over to the owner and ask him if he has any welding gear or large containers of any kind of gas or propane. I ask him if there is anything that will explode there. He answers with a emphatic no.
More checklists are running in my head. Is the ambulance coming? Did Public Service get dispatched to take care of the utilities? Is the gas off or on? Has the color or behavior of the smoke changed? What is in the garage that can hurt the crew that the owner forgot about?
The van fire is smoldering, and Dick is waiting to change air bottles of both Chris and Jeremy.
"10th Street Command"
"Go Ahead"
"Fire on van is knocked down we are doing fast attack on house fire."
"Pass command to engine 2201 and we will be fast attack 1"
You never get used to going into a house where you know there is a fire. There is a knot in your stomach when you are standing on the threshold and the only way to make it go away is to cross the threshold. The three of us walk up to the door crouched over and stop at the door. The glass window at the top of the door shatters.
Chris is on the nozzle, and I am crouched behind him, and I have a multipurpose tool called a Halligan tool. We need to attack the fire with a mix of caution and aggression, we need to be deliberately aggressive. Jeremy will stay at the door feed in additional hose line and keep an extra eye on everything.
The door is warm not hot and the smoke coming from the top of the door is the right color and is not turbulent. I remind everyone to stay low and with the protection of the outside wall I open the door.
With the protection of the wall, I open the door. Smoke is rolling out of the top 1/3 of the door. I reach around and tap the floor hard with the Halligan tool and it sounds solid. If the floor was unstable both of us would end up in the basement with compromised air masks and the engine still a couple of minutes away. Basement fires to me are the most dangerous and disorienting we deal with
I tap Chris on the shoulder. Visibility is gone as we crawl to the landing, sound the floor and 4 steps up makes our progress slower. I see a glow ahead of us. I am looking up and around, the glow can take away all of your situational awareness. I want that glow to be the seat of the fire but if I don't look up and around, I can move the crew past the main fire into a secondary fire and trap us.
Its hot in here but when we put water on the fire our visibility will drop to less than it is now and the quick expansion of steam in the room will make everything hot as hell in a second. I can hear the Darth Vadar regular breathing of Chris and see the distinct glow of his reflective strips on his bunker coat. We have used 1/2 of air and need to think about the time we have left in the house.
"Hit it" I tell Chris and he opens the nozzle directing the water to the glowing spot in the room. Almost immediately the entire room fills with hot steam and what little visibility that was there is gone.
"2201 and BC 1 arrival, BC1 assuming 10th Street Command"
The Calvary has arrived and that is great news because we need to leave the building.
"10th Street Command - Attack1, Tac2" my voice sounds muted because of the mask. I am asking the command officer to move to a tactical channel so can speak without tying up the main dispatch channel.
"Attack 1 go"
"We are coming out of the building; we have hit what we believe is the seat of the fire. Air bottle alarms are going to go off shortly."
"Copy, meet me at command car for briefing."
"Attack 1 OK" and on que my facemask has started to buzz, this is my low air alarm, and it means we need to leave the building.
I tap Chris on the shoulder and make a motion that we are leaving the building. We have only covered about 20 feet into the building, and it always seems like we were much deeper into the house.
At the front door there is another crew waiting at the door to take the hose line back in and another team getting ready to take a second line in.
There is huge crew on site now. Two more engines, a command car, ambulance, and there are firefighters packing up to relieve the crews that will be going in. The smoke is now gray and white and no longer black.
The cloudy day seems very bright now. A firefighter is handing me a bottle of water and helping me take my air pack off and is going to change the bottle. It is exhilarating to have managed those first few minutes of the fire and been on an attack line going into the building. There is time to take a deep breath now. I will walk over and give the Battalion Chief a quick summary of what we found and did.
Hard to describe how good this feels. The crew is safe and, in the debriefing, later I will get to look at all of my decisions with the assistance of senior fire officers. There is always something to learn and I will find out what I missed. But now the entire crew is safe and getting to sit down and rest. After my debriefing with the Battalion Chief, I will sit down with the crew and do a debrief with my crew.
We will be on scene for another couple of hours and assist with the mop up in the building. When we are clear, we will go back to the station, clean and replace the hose on the truck. We will clean the engine and make sure everything is "back in service". We will work another couple of hours on the engine back at the station.
Everyone is home safe.
I never did get the "fighting the dragon" or the "fire eater" thing that I have seen on t-shirts and in social media. Fire will always scare the hell out of me. Fire will always be dangerous and unpredictable.
I have a healthy respect for how things seemingly in control can spiral out of control. Fear is a good thing, it a body's way of self-preservation. Fear is the things that screams at you to pay attention and focus. Training, preparation, and knowledge take the biggest edge off of fear, but it never really goes away during a fire. Fearless people scare the crap out of me. Not understanding the risk or ignoring the risk will kill people. Managing your fear and helping people manage theirs is exhilarating especially in the noble pursuit of trying to manage an unmanageable situation for a total stranger.
Dick did an amazing job today; he looks as tired as I feel but like me, he is happy everyone is safe and going home tonight.
It occurs to me that Clayton Moore would not see his wrap around Foster Grants or his tight blue jumpsuit. Clayton often said he had fallen in love with the Lone Ranger character and tried to live by the Lone Ranger creed. In his fight to keep the right to keep wearing the mask, he became more of the Lone Ranger that he would ever realize.
I fell in love with being a firefighter. I love being in the company of brave men and women who train and work hard to make a crappy day better for a complete stranger', that is a creed by itself.
When my helmet is on the wall of my home and no longer in Station 3, I will remain a firefighter.
And when we finally meet or if I stay an extra year or two, don't be the guy who notices my wrap around glasses and my tight-fitting blue jumpsuit.
Don't be the asshole who does not see the Lone Ranger for everything he was and how he lived his life (cough).
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