4 air bottles, 1 night

The call came through at about 12:45 AM simply reporting a fire in a home. We had a near-full crew of 8 guys on the engine, and got reports of heavy smoke pushing from the first floor as we made our final turn onto the block. I broke the guys into 2 hose teams, one with a 2 1/2 inch hoseline and the other with a 1 3/4 inch hoseline. We approached the front door which had heavy fire and smoke and started putting on our Scott masks. Finally, after a 2 minute wait, water came and we began crawling our way inside.

There was heavy fire directly in front of us, which we knocked down from the doorway, some fire to the right and very heavy fire directly in front of us, down a hallway into the kitchen. As we started humping the hoseline forward down the hallway, my Captain knocked over a large cat-scratch tower which was completely on fire - right away this told us there were pets. We hit the fire on the right as much as possible before backtracking into the main hallway again. As we made the kitchen, we saw fire everywhere, left, right, above. We hit the fire from across the room before I looked to the right and noticed my Captain was kneeling directly on a patch of fire, which was making his pants begin to smoke. I yelled and grabbed him and we patted it out. I then noticed fire behind a gap in a doorframe to my right. I yelled for one of our guys to back out towards me, since he was directly in front of the wall. When he was safely behind us, I swung once with a halligan and opened up a huge hole where fire blew out of. A few seconds later, our water supply was totally cut off and our hose went limp - time to leave.

We walked outside to the front of the house and my Captain asked if I wanted to go up a nearby ladder to do a quick search of the second floor of this 3 story house. We went up the ladder and he broke the window and cleared the shards of glass and entered it while I cleared and entered another. Visibility was totally zero, and the room was heating up rapidly so we both made our way out the same windows within a minute or two.


- Open gear - cool down - drink water - change air pack -

We went back into the building, this time hanging a left and following a hoseline up the staircase to the second floor. We tried opening up some walls and ceilings but hit a chimney and a lot of furniture. I took a walk around the corner and found yet another staircase, so I ventured up it with one of my guys. Only 10 seconds at the top of that staircase made me realize the temperature had to be around 800 degrees, and we had absolutely no business up there without a charged hoseline. I looked around and saw no visible fire, so we backed down the stairs as we heard manpower was needed for a fire attack around the right side of the house in a second floor apartment.

I brought a few tools with me up the stairs, and immediately went to work helping other guys pull ceilings down as 2 firefighters hit whatever flame was there. At one point, I searched a small room to the right and found a door whose entire frame was glowing with a red outline.

I slowly opened the door and looked directly into what I would assume hell looks like. Heavy orange, red flame was blowing and rolling around violently making a whipping sound. I closed the door and told another FF to hand me a hoseline, one which barely reached around the door to the side that I was about to open. I crouched down and had the other guy open the door about 6 inches, just enough for me to stick the nozzle in and knock down all the fire in wide sweeping motions. Right after this, we closed the door back up and my low-air alarm went off, so I made my way to the exit of the apartment and down the stairs.

- Open gear - cool down - drink water - change air pack -

About 6 guys from my company and I were again waiting at the front door as we knew the crews now fighting the fire in the attic were going to run out of their air packs soon. We were right, and a few minutes later I found myself once again making entry into the 3rd floor up the small staircase. The room was cooler this time due to some broken windows and vent holes cut in the roof, so I had the guy behind me hold the hoseline as I searched the room for fire. I encountered a bunch of pet cages and fish tanks, maybe about 20 total. Later we would find all sorts of dead reptiles and animals, ranging from snakes to lizards, ferrets and hedgehogs.

We found some fire to the rear of the attic, which we could only see once all flashlights were shut off. We hit that with the hose-stream, then started pulling walls and ceilings, knocking down even more fire. Command outside radioed in that just about all smoke was now gone from the eaves of the house - we were making good progress. At one point I was looking for fire up against a sloped wall when I felt high heat by my head and face. I leaned back and hit the wall with my halligan and a bunch of fire blew out from the hole. We finished up this attack when my low-air alarm went off again.

- Open gear - cool down - drink water - change air pack -

We made a few more small fire attacks that night, and a bunch of overhaul (taking down ceilings, clearing glass from windows, opening up walls.) I made sure my crew went to work every time there was a job to do; I did NOT want to be one of those towns who sits back and lets other towns come in and fight their fires. As tired as our guys were, we each went through at least 3 full air bottles, some of us even more. Sore necks, shoulders and backs proved we really worked this fire hard.

The next morning while most of us went to work, a rekindle required 2 more mutual aid towns to come in and assist another 2 hour fire attack.