Car Fire at DMV - and the audience goes wild

I got lucky and stayed home yesterday because the heat went out and I needed a plumber. In staying home, around noontime we got dispatched to a "truck fire" at Motor Vehicles. I pictured in my head a big box truck sailing. We had a pretty small crew, 2 old timers, 1 probie, myself and the Captain's dad Artie, who's as bad-ass as they come. For a car fire, where you'll be operating max of 2 lines, a small crew is preferred, to me anyway - less complication, less cluster-fucking. I had my mask sitting on my head until I could finally see flames. It ended up being a small Honda.

I jumped out, stretched a line off the front, waited for water and started hitting it. There was no water pressure to start with, which annoyed me as water came pissing out the smooth-bore. When pressure finally came, I put out the fire and shut down when a truckie came with his favorite toy and cut the hood open. I called to another truckie to take the back window so I can see if there were any flames in the rear, being that it was a 2-door.

Everything went ultra-smooth, and I got complimented by the officer of Truck company later on a "very smooth, calm and text-book" job. We had a huge audience, a line 3 wide and probably 10 cars deep all waiting to pull in for their car inspections. That was pretty cool, never put out a fire in front of such a large audience. Musta been a pretty cool sight for them as well, even though most of them would prob rather get their inspection done and get back to life as usual.

The funniest part of the fire came when the owner of the car walked back to the remains, stuck his upper body into the back seat and pulled out his charred / melted basketball. I guess to some, priorities are obvious. "Fuck the car, get the ball!!!!"

2 car fires in 3 days - nice.

Car Fire at the Little League Field

I had just walked in from Pub 46 and taken the dog out when the tones came in. Immediately I looked at the clock and grabbed my coat, being that anything coming in at 2:15 AM was definitely a firecall. The dispatch seemed anxious and claimed there were multiple calls of a car "fully engulfed." My captain had just said earlier that he feels there's gonna be a fire tonight. He has the best record of any of us as far as predicting these things so I made sure to get to HQ fast.

We pushed out quickly and got masked up in the cab. Usually I don't like putting on a mask until I know I'll need it, but car fires are like a feeding frenzy - if you don't get off the engine and grab a hoseline immediately, someone else will beat you to it. They aren't dangerous and job openings are limited - usually to just 2 hose teams of 2 and maybe someone with a saw or tool.

Brian, one of our newest rookies, jumped on the nozzle and I backed him up. We got water pretty slow and the second line went into operation by the time water started pumping to ours. Our handline was pretty kinked up so I stepped back to unkink it, caught my foot on a curb and went right down on my ass. I was embarrassed for all of 1 second before getting up, flaking the line out and getting back to my backup position before someone else could.

I helped steer Brian closer to the other hoseteam so we didn't oppose lines, being that at this time a second car had already caught fire. The first truck was sailing pretty good and a lot of flame was licking out from the engine, prompting a truckie to come with the circular saw and cut the hood open. I had Brian put water on the hood before swinging around to get the nozzle inside some windows to put out the rest of the interior. At this point, a mixture of smoke and steam was so great that visibility neared zero for a few mins. My mask for some reason was pissing out air on the side, so I quickly removed a glove and pulled the right strap to tighten it, which solved the problem.

I feel bad for the owner of the second car because it caught on fire from the first car and had just enough damage to probably total it. Even the windshield was melted to the dashboard, which looked pretty cool actually.In the end, the first truck was burnt up bad, had the interior completely burned away and even the steering wheel was completely gone, nothing left. All we saw was a mess of wires where one's knees would be in the front, and the metal inserts of the seat headrests.

Word is a neighbor heard a pop and when they looked out the window they saw the first truck catching on fire and someone in a black sweatshirt running away. Who knows.