Deli Fire on Main Street

A few of the guys and I were at my Chief's house, and it happened to be a night where he and a few of the other older firefighters in our company were telling stories about the nice fires they had in their past. In the middle of one of his stories, the pagers go off with reports of a "working fire" at a convenience store on Main Street. Driving past, we didnt get excited until we saw thick smoke pissing out of the eaves of the store. Lets just say I drove a little faster after seeing that.

Our engine was the first to arrive on scene, and a lot of smoke was pouring out. Before arrival, Jack and I agreed to take the closest handline and make entry, so I grabbed the nozzle, Jack flaked it out and met me by the front door. I yelled to a Chief to get me bolt cutters to get through the two padlocks that were on the front door, but before he could, the front window was broken out and we swept from the D side to the A side.

Jack slid in the window on his side, and I passed him the nozzle and slid in the same way. The smoke was thick from about head level up, but hadn't banked down past our faces yet, so visibility was still ok if I crouched. I was a little out of breath and, without seeing flame yet and not feeling real heat yet I took my regulator off to get some fresh air. Well I was wrong about the second part, because one breath of the very hott, thick air made me put it back on quick.

Jack and I both felt the fire would have been in the rear corner, so we walked down an aisle and looked for a back room. He opened up a few of the coolers and smoke poured out of them, but they didn't open in the rear to a back room like they would in a supermarket: the coolers had backs on them. Finally I looked up to Jack's left and there was some wood that was glowing.

Jack and I swept around to where the embers were and a guy from Fire Company started pulling cielings as Jack put water on the flames and hot spots. I heard a Truck crew above us starting to cut a vent hole right above where the flames were - pretty accurate. This went quick and soon we switched spots and I took the nozzle for a few mins, then we left as it started to get very crowded with guys from other companies.

Later, I took an axe to a buzzing alarm inside that was annoying the shit out of everyone, but that about wrapped it up. No one was hurt and it was a pretty quick stop. The only thing questioned was whether the Truckie was right for taking the front window when he had no mask or gloves on, stood right in front of the window and thick smoke was visible behind it. Seemed like good conditions for something to blow out or go terribly wrong, but they didn't and he was lucky.