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Friday, January 22, 2010

Late for a car fire - get out of my way, cop!

The pager went off for a car fire on an intersection I usually drive past to get to my firehouse. While driving down it with my blue-light on, I saw the plume of smoke from the car fire and noticed a cop parked across the street perpendicular, to block the road. I assumed he'd move so I, a fireman, can actually get to my firehouse. Wow was I wrong. The cop sat in his car and stared me down. I pulled my car up to his bumper and hit the horn a few times. He got out of the car and stared at me.

This caused me say f*ck this, bang a sharp right and go about 5 minutes out of my way to get to the firehouse. Inevitably this made me late to a fire that a minute ago I was ten feet away from.

Anyhow, now that I had my gear, I pulled up and saw the smoke was now a thick black color, which meant the plastics and rubbers were finally on fire now. I put my gear on about 20 feet from the fire as I watched my guys stretch a hoseline. Before you could blink your eyes, one of my guys had the circular saw on the front hood, and made a cut across the entire thing to gain access to the burning engine.

Later, I walked around and saw that all 4 car doors were open. I spoke with him and said it'd be wise next time to at least try the drivers door, and give the handle a pull - you never know. In 80% of car fires, the hood-release cable will be burnt away, but juuust sometimes it's intact enough to pop the hood open without breaking a sweat. Oh well, he complained the other day that he hasn't used the saw much - now he has.

The final odd thing was a guy from another company said "Did anyone cut the battery yet," and no one had. He then proceeded to cut what he thought was the battery and look around all proud. Looking down, I realized he just cut some loose wires that were coming from somewhere else, and I pointed out the battery was actually on the other side of the car. It was kinda funny to point this out after he was all cocky that he did something no one thought about.

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