Into The Fire - A Firefighter's Blog

Basement fire in the house of a Hoarder

2011-08-22T16:18:00.001-04:00

I was up late working on a project at home when we were dispatched to a house down the block from my own for a "fire in the basement." When we got on scene, I sent two of our younger members to tag a hydrant, and I jumped off with my crew and left the engine to establish a water supply. When I got to the front of the house, there was heavy smoke coming out of the front door and windows, and I saw a hoseline was already stretched into the front door. I took my crew and went to the back of the house, put my mask on, grabbed my ax and partner and crawled in.

Me getting ready to enter the fire building

We found the stairs to the basement immediately and followed the hoseline in. I had a thermal camera in my hand, and scanned up around me before we went any further down the stairs. I slid on my ass down the stairs with my feet out, just in case the stairs gave way or there were missing stairs, I'd prevent myself from taking a nose-dive into god-knows-what.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, it was absolutely pitch black, no visibility at all. I felt the hoseline stretch to the left, so decided to take my partner and do a search to the right to make sure there were no victims. Immediately I hit what felt like a wall when i turned to the right, which was odd since the stairs ran down the center of the house. I stopped and looked around using the thermal camera, which can see through smoke and uses heat of the objects in a room to paint a colorful picture for a firefighter. I was amazed at how confusing it was, it almost seemed like there were walls all around us, almost as if we were in a bathroom, yet we hadn't moved from the staircase we came down. I found a small space closer to the stairs, and pushed my way through it. Reaching down, I pulled a 25" piece of webbing (flat rope) from my pocket which I intended to tie onto the staircase railing so I could do my search and find my way back. I finally saw what looked like a boiler, but besides that I still saw a confusing mess of objects towering over me.

What a structure looks like through a thermal imaging camera (TIC)

The chief finally made his way to the staircase and asked how many guys we had downstairs, I was surprised to hear about 5 voices from the other side of the basement - way too many people for a basement fire which we still hadn't located. I took my crew and we decided to leave, go upstairs and do a search of the first floor.
Getting to the first floor, thigns were much cooler yet visibility was still near-zero. We were able to walk some of the time, and crawl others, and did a search of the kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms and a few closets. Closets are always an important part of a search, as scared children will sometimes retreat to them in sticky situations like a fire.

All searched were negative, so I radioed this out to Command. At this point, the back door and kitchen, next to the stairwell, were getting overloaded with firefighters. There was probably 4 still in the basement, another 6 in the kitchen and probably another 5 outside the back door about to come in. The chief and I backed everyone out of the building and told them to wait in the back and Do Not Enter until asked to do so for relief for the basement crews.

This was a case where we haven't had a fire in a long time, so when one finally came in, every fireman and his mother showed up, every apparatus was overloaded with guys, young and old, who haven't gotten dirty in a while and were just way too anxious, creating a recipe for disaster in a crowded house where the fire still hasn't been located.

This is the point where I walked to the back door and noticed someone had set up a fan blowing directly into the basement where the attack crew was still working. I had not heard any call on the radio for this vent, and being that the fire hadn't been found yet I dismantled the fan. This turned into a fight with a few Chiefs later, and is still up for debate, but in my honest opinion, in an enclosed basement with no windows, when a crew is pretty far in and doesnt know where the fire is, pumping air into it without them knowing is like lighting a fuse. There's just way too many problems that this can cause, like drawing fire behind the attack crew or accelerating it where it is, and these downsides just totally outweigh the advantages in my opinion.

Once they found the fire, they called up for a relief crew to follow the hoseline down there and replace them. The fire ended up being in the rear of the basement, behind a makeshift wall. When we finally cleared most of the smoke, it was apparent why I was so confused at the beginning of the fire - there were stacks of at least 50 suitcases and boxes full of clothing, newspapers, comic books, DVDs, blankets, etc. from the floor to the ceiling, from one wall to another. The entire basement was loaded with contents, and just had a few narrow walkways through the crap for people to squeeze through. Had we known this, no one would have entered and it would have been a defensive fire attack from the start.

Needless to say, overhaul took about 3 hours to move the now-melted-together mounds of garbage, and even after that extensive overhaul, there was still a rekindle about 10 hours later, rather small but flames were visible.

The more we go into houses on activated alarms in my town, the more hoarders we're coming across and it's just a scary sight once you realize you're in a hallway where 6 foot towers of contents surround you. Not a place any firefighter ever should be, no matter what. Sometimes you don't know what you're up against until the smoke clears, but there are a few ways to prepare for this.

1. Preplanning - we go on a lot of alarms that some might call "bullshit", these are the dead batteries in detectors that alerted a nervous homeowner, or possibly a leak in the attic that made a hard-wired alarm go off. Do not waste these opportunities to enter a dwelling, whether it's commercial or residential, and take note of what you're up against. Who lives there? What's the fire load? Are there any things that the rest of the department should know about, like oxygen / acetelene tanks, wheelchair-bound residents or a hoarding situation?

2. Speak to the homeowner - a lot of fires we go to, the home owner is impatiently waiting outside the house and very often they're anxious to pass on info to anyone on scene. A few quick questions as you're approaching the house, like "Is anyone inside?", "Do you have any pets?" or even "Where is the fire?" (duh) could be worth it's weight in gold if the answer helps you in your search / attack.

In any case, extreme caution should be used if a hoarding scenerio is encountered, and always remember Life first, it is NOT worth the risk to try to save a room full of accumulated objects if there is no life within it.

Rollover extrication with quarter roof cut

2011-03-28T11:18:00.000-04:00

We were standing by in the next town over for a working house-fire that they had when a rollover occurred in our own town. Our town was low on manpower, and when the Chief got there he saw there was indeed an entrapment, so he called us back to town to take it. When we got there, one car was on its side and there was a lady pinned in the driver's seat, which was closest to the ground.

I immediately called for a dry hoseline to be stretched, and for the truck to be stabilized. While this was going on, I went to the back windshield and took a window punch and dropped it. After I cleared the window out of the frame, I crawled in, past the rear seats and made contact with the girl. She said her back and leg hurt, and I noticed that her seatbelt was still on, suspending her, and the car was still in drive. I put the car in park and took out the key, and decided to leave her seatbelt on because I didn't want to cause any movements to further injure her back.

As the guys outside began to cut the windshield out, I throw a blanket over the victim and then put my body over her to protect from falling glass. I spoke quietly to her and kept her updated on what we were doing and that she might feel some shaking and hear noises, but we'll have her out soon. Crews cut both the "A" posts and folded half the roof down. At this point, I got out of the truck and an EMT replaced me to put her collar on, as they were bringing the backboard to her.

Later that day I picked a few pieces of glass out of my neck and back as it somehow got past the helmet and collar and went into my shirt.

Trailer fire with windows glued shut

2011-03-28T10:53:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to share this experience about yesterday's trailer fire. We got dispatched to fire on the side of a trailer, and upon arrival we found a small amount of smoke and fire outside the main entrance to a residential trailer. The amount of fire was small enough that I knocked most of it down with a water can before the hoseline was even charged.

As I made entrance through the main door, there was quite a bit of smoke in the trailer. I saw children's toys thrown around the living room, so I immediately went to the back of the trailer and searched the crib and beds for any people, they were apparently all outside already. In an attempt to clear some of the smoke and heat, I went to the kitchen window and tried to open it - there was a clear plastic square blocking the entire window. I went over to the living room and there was a paneled window, but the crank was missing. I pushed hard against the frame and noticed the entire window was glued shut. I accidentally pushed hard enough that my hand broke through the glass, so we had a small vent hole now although my intention was never to cause that damage.

As I walked throughout the rest of the trailer, as guys outside finished their search for fire extension, I found that every single window in the entire trailer was securely glued shut using rubber cement. To begin with, there's only 1 entrance/exit in those trailers and the windows themselves are small as it is. By gluing all of them shut the homeowners essentially built a coffin, god-forbid the fire grew and cut off their means of egress to the main door.

Dead dog in a trailer fire

2010-12-18T20:00:00.002-05:00

I had a crowd of people over my house, all ready for a nice holiday dinner when dispatch came through and reported a trailer fire in one of our trailer courts. While we were on the way to the fire, the chief on scene reported heavy smoke pushing from the trailer. We took a detour up a street that precariously committed our engine to the street the fire was on, however the nearest hydrant was one block east, so I got on the radio and called out "Engine 6 1 5 is on scene without a water supply, I repeat, we do not have a water supply. Second due engines must drop in."

As we pulled up to the fire, I went to turn on my portable radio but it was completely dead, so I quickly fumbled to change the battery in it and jumped out. By this time, one of our 1 3/4" hoselines was being stretched off the side of the engine. I grabbed it and started flaking it out, then yelled to one of our probies "You see what I'm doing here? Keep doing it." and left her to finish the job. As I got closer to the trailer, my Lieutenant had a 2x4 piece of wood in his hand and was walking around the trailer breaking out windows in an attempt to ventilate the trailer so we could make an attack. I walked past the first door that guys were attempting to break open, and up to the second door. I took my tool and broke out two windows next to the door, then ran back to the engine to grab a second hoseline.

When I got back to the second door with the hoseline, I called on the radio for water, grabbed an axe and broke out the window right above the door handle and reached in and unlocked it. I backed up, got onto my knees and put my airmask on. When it was ready, I looked to the right and saw a few guys making entry through the first door, and yelled to the guys behind me "...You ready?" I opened the door, pushed my body into the doorway on my knees, and opened up the handline, hitting water up high, but I could not get around the corner because there wasn't enough hoseline. At this time, I felt the hoseline go limp - we were out of water. I shut down the line, backed out a few feet and yelled to the guys standing behind me "You guys have to back me up, someone grab that f**cking handline and advance it.

The time I wasted trying to get a second hoseline that actually had a water supply, although short (under a minute), was enough time to let air circulate through the first door that the initial attack crew was making an attack, through the trailer, and out of the door we had propped open. This was enough that the entire trailer, now full of fire AND air, intensified and sent flames through all windows. The initial crew had to back out of the trailer, although they were only in about 3 feet, and totally back down the stairs as the fire was now rolling out of all windows, creating a pillowy, flowing bed of smoke under the long awning.

Someone behind us passed up a hoseline from another engine that had a water supply, and the first attack crew got their own water supply working, and we tried the fire attack again, this time successfully. I crawled back into the doorway, and used the doorframe as leverage as I kicked my body to the left, getting the hoseline to reach around the doorway and get water flowing to the right, towards the other team. We saw immediate results, and the fire was knocked down in about 30 seconds.

Someone behind me yelled "The fire's knocked down, push in!" I shut down my hoseline and dragged it with me as we began to crawl over the ton of debris in the trailer to conduct a search for victims. The conditions were tight, and every now and then we had to stop crawling and open up the handline on a hot-spot or an area that was still on fire. When we pushed past all the junk and met the crew that was advancing from their door to us, I felt relief that there no longer was a danger of getting entangled, there were plenty of guys around now in case anyone needed help.

The smoke was still too thick to see, and hadn't cleared yet, when I was crawling and encountered a couch. As I began searching the top of the couch for victims, I felt a body, no doubt in my mind it was a body, under a blanket. It felt soft, but not as soft as a blanket or pillow. I immediately yelled out to my Lieutenant to come take a look. We tried our best to get some smoke out of the place, before things began to clear and I saw a big Labrador Retriever with its body still under a blanket, and smoke pouring out of his mouth. I felt so bad, I'm a dog lover and it was just horrible to see. On the bright side, being that he was partially still covered by a blanket meant that he was asleep when the fire broke out, and the smoke obviously killed him, not the heat or flames. At least he didn't panic, nor was he in any pain at all.

We called out on the radio that we had a k-9 victim, and to alert Animal Control to come to the location. After that, I pushed my way back to the second door that we made entry in when my bottle of air started ringing the low-air alarm, and I exited the trailer, passing my tools to a few guys who were standing outside ready to relieve us.

In the end, I got into discussions with a few different people who said we were wrong for making entry in the second door, and I see their point - it created a ton of airflow. However, we had two fully-manned hoselines with smooth-bore tips, which both flow enough water to single-handedly knock down that trailer fire, and I'm confident if we didn't run out of water when we did that the knockdown would have been even quicker.

Second floor bedroom fire of the hobby-taxidermist

2010-09-13T21:00:00.001-04:00

We had our monthly meeting when a firecall came through. The dispatcher sounded real excited, so I had a feeling it was something good, when they said "Your response is needed on Calvin Drive for reports of a house-fire!" Because we had our meeting, guys were practically fighting for a spot in the cab of the engine since there were so many of us. (One of the great things about being an officer is the front-seat is always reserved, I never have to fight for elbow-room in the rear)

As we were driving to the scene, the chief reported that he had visible fire coming from the second-floor windows. We pulled onto the block and stopped short, looking for a hydrant. I jumped off and walked up to the scene to take a quick inspection and saw something burning in the driveway (air conditioner unit maybe?) and heavy fire/smoke coming from the second floor window above it. An ex-chief came up to me and said he was just upstairs, the fire is in the bedroom to the right.

I looked back and saw no one had a hoseline yet and our engine was still parked pretty far back. I ran up to it to grab a water-can, which I figured might hold the fire at bay until a hoseline was ready, but the engine pulled up right past me. I went back to the house and a few guys pulled off two hoselines and we got ready on the stairs. I confirmed with the Chief that all people were out of the house, and I was told YES but the Truck/Rescue company was going for a primary search anyway.

As we put our masks on, I looked behind me and saw a line of other firefighters starting to form. I yelled to my Lieutenant to take the first 2 guys with him on the first hoseline, and I grabbed another two guys to follow me with the second hoseline.

We walked up the stairs and saw smoke at the top of the stairwell. As we got to the top of the stairs, I yelled into my radio for my chauffeur to "charge both handlines." Mine got charged first, so I began passing it up to the attack team ahead when I felt the other hoseline finally get charged. The attack team pushed forward a bit, and as they entered the doorway of the fire-room I heard them open up their hoseline. At this point I finally tied my air bottle in and began breathing fresh air as the smoke pushed back into the hallway.

The fire attack went on for about 20 seconds when I yelled to the attack crew ahead to "shut down and get the fuck in that room." They pushed forward into the room, and as I passed my hoseline to the guys behind me, I pushed my way ahead to see if the fire was indeed knocked down. I made my way ahead of the attack team and told them to "hold off for a minute."

I crawled to the far-side of the room and found a window and saw it had already been broken out from the outside. I felt around and found a bed, and when I felt the top of it for victims, I just felt some coils, blankets and a lot of heat - I realized that was where the fire must have been.

I moved across the room to another window, and opened it up and popped the screen out. Looking below, I saw a ladder already placed to the window-sill, in case we had to bail out of the room.

I had a few of the newer guys pop a few poke-holes in the ceiling above us to look for fire, and vent the smoke out of the room by opening up a hoseline out the window, which creates a vacuum of airflow known as a "fog-vent." The smoke cleared a bit, and I took off my mask to get a better view.

What we found was a charred bed and window-frame (which we later removed to look for extension), and a burnt up outlet with a melted extension cord plugged into it. The bed must have been pushed up against this connection, which caused the fire.

Looking around the room, things got weird. I found a few stuffed pheasants and other animals, as well as a gun-cabinet with a bunch of ammunition sitting on top of it. This cabinet was on the other side of the room from the fire, so it's a good thing the fire didn't have a chance to travel. It was later told to me that downstairs there was a forest of dead, stuffed animals around - this guy must have been a hunter-extraordinaire. I told the chief, jokingly, that we had a bunch of animal-victims that he might wanna go take a look at.

Bloody extrication with foot wedge

2010-08-29T15:46:00.002-04:00

I just got home from dinner when my pager went off for a car accident with entrapment on the exact highway I was just on moments earlier. When we pulled up on scene, I yelled to the back to my guys "Stabilize that car. Cut the battery and secure the wheels." I saw a bunch of EMS standing around the car while a few of my guys went to pop the hood.

As my guys searched for the car battery, I went around to the driver-side where I took a look into the car and saw the driver pinned between his seat and the steering-wheel, with blood all over the dashboard. They had already thrown a blanket over him as the cutting began.

I called for a hoseline to be brought from my Engine and posted one of our newer members to stay with it throughout the extrication once it was charged with water.

As I saw the Captain of Truck/Rescue company begin cutting the A-post of the car (the post that runs vertically in front of the driver on both sides) I looked down and was pretty surprised. The car, which had slammed into the car in front of him, had somehow slid all the way to the divider on the driver-side and came to a stop about 4 inches from the concrete barrier. In that 4 inches of space, the driver managed to open his door and get his bare foot (no shoes?) wedged between the bottom sill of the car and the door itself. Then I realized the more people were leaning on the car to make the cuts, the more pressure was being exerted on the door and his foot.

I called for 2 guys to pull the door away from his foot and hold it like that, and although the barrier didn't give them any room to do so, they held it so no one put any more pressure on the door. I then straddled the back hood and cut the back windshield out with a hand saw so the Rescue company could complete the post-cuts to remove the entire roof of the car.

At this point, to my surprise, someone finally yelled "Battery's Cut!" I learned later that this car, a brand new Mercedes, had the battery in the trunk, under some panels, and it took our guys about 10 minutes to locate and secure it.

I then walked around to the chief and the Captain of the Rescue company and said "I know this sounds nuts, but if we can just somehow move the car away from this divider, our lives would be a lot easier." No sooner than I said that did another member of the Rescue company take the spreaders and place them between a tire and the divider, which slid the car about 6 inches away, enough for me to take my helmet off and get my body in the gap, reach his foot and pull it back up and out of the way of the door opening.

I rested his foot on the small tray on bottom of the door people usually stash tissues in, and we replaced his foot with some wooden cribbing to prop the door open - it worked great.

When a few more EMS members got into the car, we pulled the seat back enough to allow room to lift the victim out. On the count of 3, we were able to slide his body up and out of the car, with the victim screaming the entire time. Of course his head, neck and back were secured to a board, but I think it was mostly pain in his legs that caused him to scream like that.

As we were putting all of our tools back, a member of OEM got into a fight with a firefighter from another town that was there taking pictures of the accident. A yelling match ensued, and once I heard "get your guys and your toys and get the F**k out of here" I grabbed my guys and left. I'd like to see that guy get a victim out of a car without our "guys and toys". Whatever, probably just a power-trip.

Right before we left, the wife of the victim ran onto the scene and was screaming at the top of her lungs as a police officer got between her and the ambulance to hold her back. There's a lot of pain and blood I can tolerate, but family members' reactions always kill me.

Belly-crawling in an attic fire

2010-07-06T12:02:00.003-04:00

We had a holiday weekend for the 4th of July, and I was out in the back w/ my little sister with a telescope when a call came in for a "small fire started by fireworks that is now out." I opted not to go, but 2 minutes later they re-broadcasted a working fire at the same address.

When I got to the firehouse, my engine already left so I jumped in the car with my Lieutenant and drove to the scene - a 3 story condo with smoke pushing out of the eaves and roof. I yelled to my Lieutenant "get dressed, we're doing a search." We got our gear secured, and I grabbed the thermal camera and we walked up the stairs, pulling a dry hoseline in as we went. I noticed small shoes and a baby-gate, which alerted me there could be kids inside. The crew on the 3rd floor came over the radio and said they did a search of all rooms for occupants.

When we got to the third floor, a firefighter was just pulling down the attic door/stairs when we saw heavy smoke above us. I took the thermal camera and hoseline and yelled that we were gonna go up into the attic to make an attack, but as soon as I reached the top of the stairs my head hit something and I couldn't move forward. The smoke made visibility impossible, but looking around with the thermal camera I noticed a wall of furniture and suitcases blocking all sides of the stair entrance. Little by little I began throwing comforters, suitcases and boxes down to the guys below me, but it was futile. Before I came down the stairs, I opened a hoseline and sprayed in a few different directions to knock down any fire that might have been beyond the rooms contents.

I backed down the stairs and told the guys "there's a ton of shit up there, and the ceiling is only 24 inches high, if we make a push we're gonna have to get everything out of there first and crawl in."

I then walked into another room and began putting holes in the ceiling with another guy to check for fire. I went to 2 windows and took the screens out, just in case someone had to get in or out in a hurry they wouldn't have to contend with the obstacle.

Another one of our guys had his upper body in the attic this time, and was on the radio communicating with the roof team on where they should cut a hole in the roof to vent. The second hole they cut must have been directly over the fire, as the smoke cleared up almost immediately. As that guy came down the stairs I said to the chief "Chief, the only way we're gonna make headway here is if we get guys into that attic and make a direct attack."

I volunteered myself and another guy from our company, we masked up and got our hoseline and climbed the ladder.

I got to the top and had to slide into the attic on my belly. Down the center of the attic was a large vent for an air conditioning unit, which took up most of the space. I used the thermal camera to locate where the fire was, and when I slid in farther, the guy behind me began passing up the hoseline. As I shimmied a little further, I yelled back at him to "watch my ass, and make sure there's no fire to our left or behind us."

I finally found some flame between the insulation and roof to my right. I brought the hoseline up under my body and laid on it while i hosed down as much as I could get. I radioed to the Chief below and said "I found the fire, knocked it down and am looking for more extension." The chief later said he was laughing as he saw brown water come pouring out of the corners of the roof, knowing that we finally found the fire. A few dropped wires snagged the air-pack on my back for a few seconds but I was able to wiggle out of them. Also, I located a 3x3 foot cut made in the roof about 5 feet ahead of me in case my exit got cut off by fire.

As my air bottle began to get low, I told the guys behind and below me it was time to back out and get a fresh crew up there to pull some more insulation.

It was hot as hell outside and offered me no relief from the heat as I exited the building. I was kneeling down drinking water and stood up too fast and almost fell down, so I quickly took another knee just in case.

It was a great knock down, and the fire started most likely from bad electric wires because when I was up in the attic I noticed a bunch of severely burned wires next to a melted light fixture.

Fire at the Sushi Cafe

2010-06-08T11:24:00.005-04:00

Last night we had elections in my firehouse and I was voted in as the new Captain. Not 3 hours after I got home did the pager go off (around 12:30AM) for an activated fire alarm. I shot down to the firehouse and as I'm gearing up, dispatch came again and confirmed it was a working fire, and that the Police on scene stated there was heavy smoke coming from a strip-mall. My new Lieutenant was driving, and I had 1 experienced guy, 1 kinda-experienced guy and 1 new guy in the engine with us.

As we pulled up, I yelled that the 2 least experienced were to grab a hydrant and tie the engine in to the water supply, and being that it was a strip-mall, I told my experienced guy that him and I were to stretch a 2 1/2 inch line as the initial attack line.

We slowly rolled closer to the fire building. The strip mall had about 8 units in it, the middle-most unit was Sushi Cafe - the fire unit. Heavy smoke was coming from the eaves of the fire unit and both adjacent units. I stretched a dry hoseline to the front door to get a better look and noticed the front glass was jet-black with streaks coming down it. Something didn't feel right. I looked at the glass door and it had cracks in the glass from left to right. No smoke was coming from the door, just from the eaves.

I turned around and my Chief was approaching me. I yelled to him that we have a "backdraft situation" here and he should stand clear, as should anyone else. He yelled back at me to stop yelling and to calm down. As he said that, the owner of the Sushi Cafe walked up innocently and put his key in the door and was about to open it when the Chief grabbed him and threatened to have him arrested if he didn't back off immediately.

As I was waiting for the driver to charge our hoseline, I decided it was smart to throw up a 14 foot ladder to the roof to help anyone going up. In my eyes, we still had a backdraft risk and I wanted to ventilate it vertically before we opened the door. Once the ladder was put up, we put our masks on and knelt down by the door where I opened it slightly to vent. Not much heat came out and just some smoke, but it all looked normal so I looked at the guy behind me and said "...Ready?" He was.

As we crawled in, I remember my driver saying he didn't have water from the hydrant yet so we were working off the tank water from the engine, a mere 500 gallons. This would typically last about 2-3 minutes with a 2 1/2 inch line. We felt heat immediately and were met by some chairs and furniture. I stopped us about 8 feet in and hit the ceiling with a short burst of water. This was my way of checking to see if there was fire or extreme heat above us that maybe we didn't feel yet. As I could hear and feel the water come back down on us, I said "...alright lets push farther, give me more line."

We crawled in about 15 feet, and were just about to the end of the restaurant before I heard someone at the door where we entered yelling "WE GOT HEAVY FIRE BEHIND YOU." This is NOT what I wanted to hear. I turned around and saw a slight glow and realized there was a 4-foot countertop that had been blocking our view of the fire the entire time, and we had crawled right past it. It crossed my mind to back out, but we had 3 guys and a 2 1/2 line to contend with, so I said "Let's hit it from here." I climbed up onto the countertop and straddled it while the other 2 guys behind me brought the hoseline 180degrees around and handed it up to me. The way the line was bent, I still couldn't get a direct shot at the fire yet so I hit the ceiling right above it and let the water rain down on it. This dimmed it down a bit until my guys finally positioned the line better and I got a direct shot at the fire.

Already I noticed the smoke was letting up a bit and I could see some things around me. I rubbed my mask and realized that most of the lack of visibility was due to steam buildup on the outside of the mask itself. The Chief called me on the radio and asked if I wanted the large plate glass window taken out in the front for ventilation, I yelled "NEGATIVE, just use the open door for now. We have the main body of fire knocked down at this time and are looking for extension."

Visibility improved drastically and we were able to see everything in the restaurant in a light haze as the counter and wall cooled off with some more water. We walked outside and saw another company trying to break into the other units in the strip mall. When I looked up, I still saw heavy smoke coming from the eaves of a few other units. This was discomforting. We used tools and some hydraulics to gain entry into the other units, and found just residual smoke probably from the air ducts, but no more fire.

Pretty smooth for my first fire as a Captain.

Flashover training container

2010-04-06T10:26:00.082-04:00

We've been pretty slow lately so I scheduled flashover training up at the fire academy for our company. Flashover is defined as the "near simultaneous ignition of all combustibles within a confined area." Basically this is when a room gets so hot due to fire that everything lights up at once. This typically happens when the temperature reaches between 800 and 1300 degrees F. This can happen as soon as a few minutes after a fire starts in a room. It's somewhat predictable by a few telltale signs: 1. thick, black smoke banking down from the ceiling 2. sudden increase in temperature which is felt even through fire gear 3. the rolling over of flame and fire across the ceiling. The problem is that the first indicator usually masks the third. And with fire gear being so protective nowadays, the second indicator usually fails to give firefighters enough time to evacuate.

The flashover course is meant to give firefighters a heads up on what imminent flashover conditions look and feel like. Because survival is impossible for anyone in a room that flashes, the flashover container at the fire academy is built so the firefighters are actually set 3 feet below ground level.

On the raised portion, the walls and ceiling are lined with inch-thick pressboard. A 50-gallon metal drum is placed in the middle and filled with some wood from broken up pallets. In front of the pail is a small pile of shredded paper. Paper ignites at around 300 degrees, so the shredded paper stands as a simple thermometer for us to tell when the floor of the room about to flash reaches that temperature.

We had 5 firefighters on their knees on the left side and 4 on the right side. Down the middle were two instructors, one with a hoseline and one who's job it was to monitor the conditions. Flares were used to ignite the barrel and we were told not to go on air until we absolutely feel the need to.

As the fire started growing, we used our temperature guns to detect the heat in the areas around and above the flame. A temperature gun (heat gun) shines a red laser dot on objects which then reflect back and tell us how hot that object is. Like thermal cameras, heat guns cannot detect the heat of the air - just the heat being radiated from a solid object.

As the fire grew, temperatures quickly shot up from 90 degrees to about 300 above the fire and smoke started increasing. The smoke was nearly down to the floor by the time the last of our guys tied the regulators of their air packs into their masks. Now, it was just a matter of time. As temperatures in the upper room got up to about 600 degrees, the back doors of the flashover container were opened to let in some fresh air. Then the fire really took off and think black smoke quickly banked down from the ceiling to about head-level where we were sitting (remember, we were 3 feet below the ground level of the fire-floor.)

The instructor yelled "VENT" which meant the front-most guy on the left side was to pull a lever, opening a small vent in the ceiling. Within seconds, the thick smoke began to clear as the fire grew exponentially. At once, the entire front compartment was ignited in vibrant, bright hot flame. The fire came back towards us right above our heads and danced around a bit before the instructor had the vent closed and the fire died down a bit.

Both sides of guys were told to rotate so the front guys could catch a break in the rear and someone else could have front-row seats. As the back door was opened again, we could see all the standing smoke above our heads rush towards the fire as it sucked in the fresh air. The fire in the barrel grew in intensity again and we could see slow-moving black smoke just being sucked out of the particle board lining the walls. This was mostly products of incomplete combustion and carbom monoxide. In a typical house fire, all the contents (couch, tv, carpet, walls) would give off this gas. Upon the vent being opened again, we all saw for ourselves that that gas was exactly what ignited in the air.

Now that most of the smoke was clear, we had a much better view of each subsequent flashover. Some flames slowly snaked through the air right above our heads to where we could actually reach up and touch them. It was truly amazing. Between flashovers, the thick black smoke slowly came down from the ceiling. It was thick and looked like bubbling soup from our view from our knees. The temperatures our heat guns displayed were between 300 and 400 degrees righit above our heads, and up above the fire-barrel went from 800 to off-the-charts when it flashed.

When there was no more fuel left for the fire, we all crawled out and slowly took off our smoking gear, keeping our gloves on so we wouldn't burn our bare hands on the buckles.

Cat in the couch

2010-03-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

A caller phoned dispatch and said their kitchen was on fire. I shot down to the firehouse and someone said the homeowner now reported it was a dryer in the kitchen that was on fire. The chief told us there was a hydrant on the corner. We followed the ladder truck in and tied into the hydrant before realizing the fire was at the total opposite end of the block, so we laid probably like 600 feet of 3 inch supply lines when there happened to be another hydrant almost in front of the house. Oh well.

When we pulled up I didn't see much smoke, so I told 2 guys to stretch an 1 3/4 inch hoseline off our right side reel while I went to the back of the engine to get tools. As I approached the side door, I saw heavy smoke up 4 stairs in the kitchen, but there was already about 5 guys in there and no room for more, so I told the chief behind me not to let anyone else in the staircase to keep it clear in case guys needed to bail out. The kitchen door had an auto-close mechanism on the top of it, and fresh out of door chocks I used the adz end of a halligan under the door to prop it open.

As I finally managed to work my way in, I saw the fire was knocked down with water cans only, so I took a few guys with me to open up every window in the house to start ventilation. The smoke cleared pretty rapidly when one of my guys showed me all melted plastics all over his gloved hands. Everyone had the same, and we realized there were a few plastic trays above the dryer that they all put their hands in while moving it out to secure the gas line behind it.

A word came from the outside there was a cat inside, so I took one of the young guys with me to search for it. I searched pretty thoroughly before the homeowner came in and said it's probably in a couch. WTF? I lifted all the couches in one room aand looked under them, but the homeowner was convinced the cat was there. Finally he came in and as the couch was lifted he went up inside the cushions with his arm and pulled out a cat, apparently scared shitless. Who woulda known that thing was way up in there like that.

In the end 2 cats were saved and the fire was knocked down before it could get up into the walls.

4 air bottles, 1 night

2010-03-11T10:03:00.028-05:00

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.

Chief's Dinner w/ bagpipers

2010-02-20T11:51:00.000-05:00

So the Chief and I engaged my buddy who works at VH1 to put together a video / photo montage with music and voice overs for his chief's dinner. We had the great idea of ending the video with a song the Bergen County Bagpiper's do, and when this song plays to have the actual bagpipers lined up outside, and play along.

When we got to the venue, things started going wrong. First, the video guy was nowhere to be found. Then we realized they set up the video equipment but not the audio equipment. Finally, with 260 people watching, they couldn't get the video to play at all. The bag pipers were lined up outside the door (secretly) and after 10 lonnng minutes, they got the video to play. We choreographed the pipers and they chimed in perfectly on the second measure of the song at the end of the video, surprising everyone.

They came in and played a sick show that everyone enjoyed and is still talking about.

Fish-tank warehouse with partial collapase

2010-02-01T04:00:00.000-05:00

Last night we got called out to about 5 firecalls - sleep is overrated. One of them was a sprinkler-main break inside of a warehouse. It was about 19 degrees out, so on the approach we were met with a huge amount of flowing water which was just building upon the already thickening sheet of ice near the warehouse. Through the front glass doors we could all see the water main just dumping water out at a high velocity, and it was already about 3 feet deep behind the glass. Not gonna lie, it looked pretty awesome. The entire brick veneer had already separated from the building and collapsed into a pile.

We did a quick search for utility shut-offs in the second half of the building and shut off the sprinkler feed valve as much as we could before we just had to turn it over to the water company to deal with.

Holy electrical fire, batman!

2010-01-23T17:00:00.000-05:00

Early on Saturday we got called for a light-fixture on fire in a church meeting room. It was a ballast, and my heat-gun registered about 300 degrees on it. It was surely burnt up, so we took most of the fixture down and cut the electricity to the ballast. We did not, however, take the ballast down as the Chief felt it was cool enough to ignore since the power was cut.

Well, about 2 hours later, we got called back to the scene where the residents reported the ceiling to be on fire. I got there late and went right to the scene, where I was met by a yelling Chief, an engine that couldn't get into pump, and a hoseline stretched into the building. I threw on a Scott pack and followed the line in.

I looked up once I entered the room and was met with a 15 foot cross-shaped exposed area of the ceiling that our guys took down with their pike poles, with some fire in the middle. I can't express how creepy it was to see this in a church. I said "did it have to be a crucifix?" and everyone laughed once they realized what they'd done.

In any case, the electricity was cut and ceilings were pulled into a pile of smoking debris on the floor. A member of another company ordered the nozzle-man to drench the debris before I cut in and said there's no need to create more of a mess, and that we were better off just carrying the debris outside and wetting it down there. I'm proud of that call as a few mins of manpower saved a lot of face - we had done enough damage already in checking for fire extension.

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

2010-01-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

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.

Small kitchen fire in Devries Park apartments

2010-01-08T12:44:00.000-05:00

I was working at home on a Friday and dispatch paged us out for reports of heavy smoke coming from a second floor window in the first of 4 garden apartments in a strip. My captain drove and when we pulled up onto the block I couldn't see any smoke but a few of the older guys ran over to the engine telling us it was definitely on fire. One of our younger members went with our captain and pulled both 3 inch supply lines off our giant rear reels on the engine, and wrapped a hydrant.

One of the older members got too excited and drove away fast and one of the supply lines came unwrapped and began to drag behind the engine. While everyone else stared at it, I ran and grabbed it and held it to the ground while the engine pulled away, then dragged it back to the hydrant so we would have both supply lines in operation.

Going back to the apartment, I masked up on the stairs because I could see heavy smoke coming from the second floor window and I assumed that's where the fire was - WRONG. As soon as we crawled into the front door, my captain made a hard right into the kitchen and the fire was right there, coming out of the cabinets. We ripped up some of the counter tops to get to the fire, which seems it started in a drawer (malfunctioned lighter?) We quickly set up a vent to get the smoke out and broke out one 12x12 inch window total, minimizing damage to the apartment.

I can safely say we came in, established our own water supply, put out the fire, checked for extension, vented and took up in a matter of 20 minutes.

Pulled out of a truck-fire

2009-12-28T16:22:00.002-05:00

It was Christmas Eve. and just after appetizers my pager went off reporting a truck "fully involved in fire." We raced down to the scene expecting exactly what was reported, but instead we saw no flames, just a truck and a ton of smoke. The Chief met me in front and told me the police had already put the fire out with their extinguishers, as it had been rolling out of both wheel-wells when they arrived. I had my guys stretch a length of hose and charge it to put out whatever fire was left.

There was still heavy smoke coming out of the front hood and under the rear of the SUV. A few of my guys grabbed some tools and I heard yelling "take the f*ing windows." I yelled back NOT to take any windows yet, before I walked around trying the doors. For some reason I had a weird feeling there might be someone still in the back seat or something. Finally, I tried the driver-side door front door, which happened to be unlocked. To my amazement, a big burly guy was sitting in the midst of the blinding smoke IN the truck. I jumped back and said "What the f*ck???"

Just then the Chief walked around and shared my amazement as we pulled him out, saying "This guy was IN the truck the entire time?!?!" He was still conscious (no idea how) and immediately brought to the hospital for smoke inhalation. Must have been drunk enough that the noise outside didn't wake him from his nap.

As for the fire, it was very stubborn, hiding under the truck and we had to put the curved extension onto the nozzle to access it. The arson squad and a detective came down and spoke to me about what we found before we left the scene.

I pulled the newer members aside later and reviewed what just happened. I mainly highlighted the point that on a fire scene, people should NEVER assume that something is done. What I mean is firefighters should NEVER assume a room has been checked for victims unless they're 100% positive it has been. Similarly, FF's should NEVER assume an area of a structure fire (or in this case, an auto-fire) is clear of all life while a fire is going on. One would think that fire would drive a person out of their home or car... but this proves those kinds of assumptions could very well be the ones that kill civilians or other firefighters.

Small kitchen fire at the drug lady's house

2009-09-28T15:02:00.002-04:00

We were at the firehouse about to go out on our Boot Drive fundraiser when we got called out to an "oven fire." Upon arrival, I took 3 guys with me and told the rest to stay on the engine since there wasn't any smoke / flame visible from the outside of the house. On the first floor we were met with pretty heavy smoke, a ton of furniture and what will be referred to as the "drug lady." It was the homeowner, a 60-something little old lady, no teeth, nervous as hell.

She guided us around the corner to the area where she put out the fire, it was an electric stove, melted, with much char to the backsplash, cabinets above, wall adjacent and the cieling. To be honest she did a great job putting out the fire but this was just the start of the fun. As she paced behind us, I asked her to "please go outside and wait by the chief." She walked out of the house but as fast as I could turn around she was back behind me looking through paperwork on her cluttered kitchen table. I asked again "lady can you please leave this house?" She replied "yes, but how long will you guys be?" I laughed, her house was just on fire and she was acting like I'm installing a new cable-package for her TV.

Yet a third time, after she had left again, she reappeared behind me asking once again "so you guys will just be a half hour? Will it take any longer than that?? My husband needs his drugs." I laughed and walked her out of the house. The house was a complete disaster anyway, clothes piled up 5 feet high in every corner, a kitchen with barely enough room to shuffle through and rooms that I couldn't imagine sitting down in, let alone sleeping in. Eventually I had the chief baby sit her outside but she definitely made my day haha. The husband she was referring to was already being looked at by EMS outside but she musta been feelin pretty good because she kept insisting he was in the bedroom and needed drugs.

Anyway, we pulled the oven hood off the wall, poked a couple of holes in the walls and backsplash looking for residual smoke or heat, and turned the place over to the fire marshall who i'm sure had his share of fun with the amount of fire hazards and lack of detectors in that place.

Friday afternoon extrication

2009-09-08T15:01:00.002-04:00

I work at home on Fridays, which sometimes offers me work I'd otherwise miss while at work. This Friday, we got called to the scene of an MVA (motor vehicle accident) with reports of entrapment. My Captain and I jumped on the Rescue truck while our other, less-experienced guys jumped on the Engine. While on the way to the scene, we discussed our job roles and figured that I'd stabilize the car with cribbing and cut the battery while my Captain gets some of the hydraulic tools out. Of course, he got all excited and jumped in front of me grabbing all the cribbing he could before I could even turn around.

Anyhow, the car got whacked by a utility truck, spun around and got t-boned by an SUV then finally pinned between the two. They were able to pull back the utility truck and I realized the driver indeed was pretty badly hurt. There was also a guy in the back seat with a blanket on from the EMT's so he wouldn't get hit by glass or other debris as we worked. Being that both side doors were locked in, I couldn't get through to the hood to cut the battery without cutting the hood, which in my opinion endangered the driver since his steering-wheel airbag was not yet deployed. Looking back now, we should have wrapped the steering wheel to prevent injury but we didn't.

A few guys brought out a spreader and a cutter and we walked to the passenger side to begin popping the doors off to get the backseat guy out. I held the top of the rear door and began bending it down as the Captain from another company inserted the spreaders between the door and the frame in an attempt to pop the pin. We literally bent the whole top half of the door completely down with no pin-breaking success in removing the door. Then my Captain grabbed the spreaders and went to the hinge side, which was more successful. I cut the remaining cables and wires that were holding the door on and we tossed the crumpled piece into the street, and the back-seat guy was free. Although injured, he was able to get out on his own.

Once the SUV was pulled off the driver's door, they were able to pull him out and strap him to a backboard, supporting his head and neck with a brace. He was pretty f'ed up. No blood but my guess is a few broken ribs, maybe a broken back or neck.

Back to Back car fires

2009-08-15T16:07:00.000-04:00

On Friday afternoon, about 30 mins before I was supposed to take Kate to the movies, we got paged out to a reported car fire behind a building. While driving down the firehouse, I passed the area and saw a 100ft dark tower of smoke, thick enough that I was skeptical if it was a car or if the building had caught fire. When we got on scene, my captain had me grab the nozzle and walk down the dark alley way as he and the new guy stretched the hoselines. Walking to the back of the building I found a Jeep fully involved in fire, the engine, the cab, the tires, everything.

I told one of our new guys to get on the nozzle as we were masking up and waiting for water. As soon as our lines got charged, I decided to sweep him to the left because another company was about to charge their hoseline on it and we were right in their path. Those guys are new and I just didnt want to take that chance. Anyhow, by the time we started flowing water into the truck, my captain had started the saw and I could hear they were having problems cutting the front hood open. Eventually the gas tank melted and a bunch of gasoline poured under the truck and caught fire as well. I had the new guy open up a few short bursts to finish the truck off as my captain finally got the hood open and water into the engine. The truck was a goner - the license plate completely melted away as well as the steering wheel. The heat was also enough to melt the taillights of a nearby car.

A day later, almost the same time of day, we get called out to a car fire on the other side of town. Another company had already been dispatched there, which made me think that either they weren't doing the right thing or didn't have enough guys. Anyhow, as we were pulling up I saw a car with the engine on fire right in front of a few air pumps at a gas station. I casually got out and told 2 guys to stretch a hoseline as I went to get the saw for the hood. I told Brian to sweep around to the street-side of the car because he was standing on the opposite side as the first hose team, which once again woulda been a nightmare if anyone opened up their hoseline.

As I got the saw started, this ex-chief of ours (who now weighs over 250 pounds) decided that today he wanted to play. He barges in and I watch him grab a hoseline from another one of our guys. I walk around to the front of the car and start the circular saw. As i do that, this ex-chief stumbles back and falls down right next to the saw. Thank god the saw stalled out when i released the throttle because it was damn close to his head. He got up and moved so we could finish cutting the front hood open and getting water on the engine. I then walked around and popped the trunk to make sure there was nothing harmful.

The ex-chief had to get taken away to the hospital where they said he had micro-tears in his heel. He's too big for his own good and I keep highlighting the fact that if he goes down like that in a house fire, it's gonna take about 5 guys to get him out.

Working drill at Bennigan's

2009-08-06T13:40:00.002-04:00

The local Bennigan's has been shut down for over a year, but recently our Chief got permission to drill in it. 3 of my guys came with me and another company last night with a bunch of Scott packs, some search rope, a smoke machine and a gameplan.

After smoking the place up pretty thick, we divided the guys into 2 hose teams and a search team. I was the officer to stay with both hose teams. From the get-go, after entry was forced by the search team and they entered, we had troubles with the first line. As both lines were already charged, I figured it'd be tough to maneuver around corners but we should have prepared better by flaking out the lines directly in front of the doors. Instead, about 10 feet to the parking lot, both lines made a quick right turn into the direction of the Engine, so they caught the doorframe about 10 feet in.

As I was trying to keep communication with both hose teams, I ended up following the hoselines back to the front door to feed more line at the same time I was trying to aid in their searches for the "fire", which was 2 orange cones in the rear of the building. All the crawling and stretching lines took its toll on me, as the heat in the building really built up (it was a very humid August day btw.) The first hoseteam went too far and ended up stretching the line all the way to the kitchen. Good thing the second hoseteam made a left to search a room the first had passed by, so they found the fire first and "put it out." Had this been a real world scenerio, the first hose team would have went past the fire and possibly been trapped by it, so this highlights the fact of how necessary it is to have no less than 2 hoselines in any working fire.

The second evolution involved a long search line (about 75 feet of rope) and hoods over our facemasks. We tied the rope off to a stop sign in the parking lot and I worked with 2 other guys going into search for a victim that had been placed behind some tables somewhere in the restaurant. As we pushed into the building, we encountered a few rooms to the left of us. I, being the first searcher, positioned myself to the far side of the entrance, let out a 20 foot section of rope I had with me, and guided both searchers hands onto it before sending them into the room to search for victims. Everything ran very smooth.

Eventually we made our way to a room on the right where the guys finally found their victim. They reported to me, and I got on the radio and called for 2 fresh guys to follow the rope to us. When the fresh guys finally got to us, I guided their hands to the 20foot section of rope which led them to the victim and my 2 original guys they were to replace. The 2 original guys came back and followed the rope out, while the 2 fresh guys secured and carried their victim using the rope as a guide. I let them go first, with the victim in the middle, and myself at the rear as we made our way to the exit of the building. This evolution went flawlessly.

The last evolution we did was to put an activated PASS alarm in a glove and hide it in the building somewhere, to simulate a downed fireman. Teams were sent in and quickly found it. We should have muffled it more. Great drill, they guys came out tired and with a bit more experience.

First day as Lieutenant

2009-06-30T11:59:00.002-04:00

The former Lieutenant, John, couldn't wait to give up his red helmet and LT shield. The position caused him a tremendous amount of stress this year, along with his financial problems and love-issues. To be honest, I don't think he fully thought the position through. I think he was more intent on wearing a red helmet than he was in managing a fire company.

Last night, he finally took the helmet and handed it over to me, making my officer status official. Within 6 hours of receiving the helmet we had 3 firecalls in town, allowing me about 4 hours sleep before work the next morning. Oh well. This should be an interesting year, looking at our increased working-fire count lately...

House fire on Avenue B

2009-06-25T11:33:00.003-04:00

After working the chemical plant fire all night, I took off work and went to sleep at about 7:30 AM. About noon I woke up for some food and to make a few phonecalls. About 3 PM, the pager goes off for smoke coming from the 2nd floor of a house on Avenue B. While driving down to the firehouse, dispatch comes again and says as per the Chief on scene, it's a confirmed working house fire.

I took the officer's seat and upon approach of the fire, the Chief routed us to the block behind to try an attack from the rear. I took the guys off the engine, leaving the driver and one guy to drive to the end of the block, wrap a hydrant, and come back. I ran to a few backyards, looking for our best attack position, before finding one with a nice wide walkway and a clear shot to the heavy fire blowing out of the second floor rear window. One of our juniors already had a garden hose on the eaves, which looked funny but actually helped keep the fire from spreading until we stretched 2 lines to the rear of the house.

I hadn't heard about any interior attacks, and since we had a clear shot, I let the guys open up the line into the window and to start hitting the eaves and the roof. The second line next to me was directed at the house next door to keep it wet and cool. We shut down the line a few seconds later and then heard there were interior crews making headway so we put the lines down.

A call came across the radios stating that a 14 year old girl was possibly inside. A few minutes later, she was accounted for by her parents and an aggressive attack finally put that fire to rest.
We set up a few ladders and pulled the eaves as the fire darkened down and the crews inside began to fog-vent.

Later I learned that while our guys in the back were putting water into the window from the outside, there actually were guys in the fire-room. They told me the outside line screwed up the thermal balance in the room and they had to bail out down the stairs that they originally came up. I felt horrible. There were about 15 of us in that backyard, and no one had that line shut down for a good minute nor did anyone know there were crews up there until apparently it was too late.

Better communication would have prevented this but still no water should have entered that building from the outside regardless. There was plenty of fire blowing out that back window, so the vent was already doing its job. Hitting the eaves and exposure building should have been the extent of the rear operations. I consider that a horrible call and very preventable with a little forethought.

All Night Chemical Plant Fire

2009-06-23T17:30:00.000-04:00

Out of all the days to stay late at work, my boss asked me Tuesday to stay until 8PM for a late meeting. Around 4:30 PM my phone starts ringing off the hook with my guys calling me to tell me there's a huge factory fire on Garibaldi Ave. I checked with a few sources to make sure it would still be burning when I got home (being that my commute is over an hour) and they reassured me it would be burning for a long time. I left work with apologies to my boss and let's just say that was the longest commute of my life.

Coming into my town I could smell and see the smoke. I grabbed a few granola bars, got dressed, went to headquarters and grabbed my gear and drove to the scene. The smoke engulfed a few city blocks and when I got close, police moved the barricades to let my car in.

When I met up with my crew, they were standing and watching as all the tower ladders were in full operation, and I was told this was a 100% defensive operation as the plant had unknown chemical and plastic contents and was vacant. As everyone was unsure of the quality of the air, we were all issued filter-masks similar to the ones surgeons wear, and some agency was already on scene doing air-quality testing.

I found my Captain and as I'm stepping up as Lieutenant in a month, I felt this was a great opportunity to work side by side and get some things done. Even though Engine Companies don't have much function at a defensive fire besides pumping water to the master streams, we found a metal staircase to a lower-set rooftop that had a door that led to one of the attached buildings that was not yet involved in fire.

After giving a heads up to the Chief and all operating ladder streams, we took a 3 man team up the attached metal stairs to set up a 2 1/2 inch line up hanging up and over the parapet next to an attached roof-access ladder. Next to us was a door to the building, which we cut off the hinges with a circular saw. We stretched the 2 1/2 up the stairs, made a big U into the room and back out of the room, 3 feet up the wall and hung it over the parapet.

I was standing a foot into the room when they charged it, unaware that I was standing right in the center of the U the line made. Water rushed throught he lines and the weight pulled the 2 1/2 tight and I quickly realized it would sweep my legs right out from under me. I only had about a second between hearing water rushing and seeing the line whipping towards my legs. I jumped as high as I could as it swept under my feet like lightning and it just caught my heel, tripping me slightly, before flying out the door and almost down the stairs. That was an extremely close call as it nearly brought me down the stairs with it. Crisis averted and let this be a lesson to me and anyone reading this to stay the hell away from a 2 1/2 as it's charging, even if your pump-operator is more gentle on the throttle than mine.

Our strategy was to set up one firefighter sitting on the 2 1/2" hoseline on the parapet, one firefighter on the landing beside him for support, one firefighter a foot into the room with a thermal camera to watch for encroaching fire, and an officer on the landing to coordinate it all.

100 feet across the roof from the nozzle-man was a set of windows which at this point all had massive amounts of fire rolling and blowing out of them. The idea was to hit the right-most window to keep the fire from moving right and entering the attached building. Every 7 minutes we rotated positions and sent 1 man down to be replaced with someone fresh from the ground below.

The attached room was hot and had a haze of smoke that got denser as time went by. At the far end of the room was a hallway which had fire that could be seen with the thermal camera, but not yet with the naked eye as the smoke was too thick down the hallway. An interior attack was out of the question as master streams operated above us, even though they were aware of our crew. As we rotated guys more and more, we noticed the fire was making its way down that hallway towards us, and we debated whether to wait for it to enter the room and make a final stand with the 2 1/2 from the landing at the doorway.

After about 45 minutes of fire attack, no improvement was seen in the windows we were hitting and the fire was getting even closer down the hallway. Too many towers were in operation flowing water, and we decided our attempts were futile and we backed down the metal stairs. 15 minutes later that entire building was overcome by heavy fire, creating furnace-like conditions.

A few hours later, I took a walk around the front of the building, which now had heavy flame blowing out of 3 or 4 windows, catching a nearby tree on fire as well. Rehab was set up in a deli across the street, and everyone operating with me earlier on the stairs went inside for some pizza and O2.

We set up our deck gun later on the same building we were trying to protect earlier and stayed for another 10 hours pumping water to all the master streams in operation. About 7 AM, my crew was relieved by one of the 16 towns helping out through the night. I went home, called my boss to take off work, and fell asleep until the pager went off a few hours later for a house fire on Avenue B...

I made Lieutenant

2009-06-15T14:03:00.002-04:00

While on vacation, my company held elections and, although most of the guys said they'd nominate me for LT., I wasn't so sure. Although the old timers don't have much input on the fireground anymore, they still make a lot of the decisions around the firehouse and especially if the person involved isn't there to defend himself. Anyway, I got a text message while I was rushing back from the aiport that they unanimously voted me in as their next LT. I found out afterwards that the town also changed our terms for officers from 12 months to 18 months, so looks like I'm in it for the long-haul.

Fire while getting a haircut

2009-05-09T10:34:00.003-04:00

My company was at a wetdown in another town, but I stayed back since I had a mother's day dinner that night. While under the apron getting a haircut, my pager went off for a house fire on Union Street. I jumped up, threw a 20 on the table and ran out. Another engine was already flying down the hill, they were apparently all in the firehouse waiting for their turn to go to the wetdown so they got out fast.

I ran to the firehouse, grabbed my gear and jumped in a buddy's car. As we got on scene, we saw light smoke coming from the attic window of the house. We ran to another engine and grabbed some Scott Pack's and tools. As we entered the house, there were already about 5 or 6 guys at the top of the stairs. We helped hump a charged line around the winding staircases to the 3rd floor. After that, we investigated the other rooms but so no fire or smoke. It started getting very crowded up there with other firefighters, so the Safety officer made his way up and kicked most of us out.

When I walked out of the front door and looked up, the light haze had turned to thick black smoke that was pushing out of the attic window - not a good thing. I went with a few others to the basement and first floors to investigate to make sure the fire hadn't started in the basement - something that has happened before, especially in Balloon Frame Construction. We poked a few holes and found nothing, then made our way back up to the 3rd floor.

The attack team was rotated out and we missed our chance to replace them as another team went up when we were in the basement. Walking around on the floor below the fire floor, the ceilings were gushing with water. I was afraid that the water weight combined with whatever fire-load was in the attic, plus the firemen, would be too much for the ceiling to hold, so my team and I began extensively taking down the sheetrock on the ceiling to let the water drain. Hundreds of gallons of water quickly flowed from hundreds of holes in the ceiling, covering all of us in char, soot and muck. After that, we heard on the radio the fire was finally knocked down and we just turned over the overhaul operations to a neighboring town's crew.

Auto Yard Haz-Mat / Trailer Fire

2009-04-30T10:22:00.004-04:00

It was about 3:40 AM on a work night when dispatch said there was a trash fire behind Shop Rite. I almost rolled over on the call, but I'm currently running for Lieutenant so I figured it'd be good to show my face for a B.S. call so close to the time I'd have to wake for work. Sleep's overrated anyway right?

Anyway, as I'm driving down, dispatch came through and changed the story 3 times, finally saying it was a trailer fire in the local Junk Yard. No drivers showed for our engine so we jumped on the ladder truck and pulled into the lot to see a huge plume of dark smoke above a heavy fire load at the base of a building. The main problem was a huge metal gate w/ a chain and padlock. We tried jamming a halligan through the padlock and beating on that with the flathead axe, but I got fed up and got the circular saw and cut through the chain in a matter of seconds.

My crew and I ran forward and the truck followed us, sneaking past the fire to get better positioning to put the ladder up behind the building. We stretched lines off the ladder truck as no engines had arrived yet, and just as we're about to throw it into pump, the Chief yelled to us to forget the line and to put the ladder up, as the fire was now climbing the side of the building. I saw how close we were to putting a fire-attack team into play so I ran and argued with the Truck chauffeur until he quickly threw the ladder into pump before going back to the ladder operations.

I oversaw two of our guys as they alternated keeping a 50 gallon metal drum of god-knows-what cool and attacking the actual fire on the building and rooftop. When they had it under control, I ran and grabbed 2 other guys and some tools and began working on the door to gain entry into the building. As I'm putzing around getting a halligan, one of my guys gave a swift mule kick to the door and it flew open. Not too smart if there was built up pressure and heat behind that door, but he swears to me that he checked it first.

We masked up and went in, surprised the visibility was great and there was only a light haze of smoke, and no visible fire. I was pulling a chain to open the huge garage door to vent when a captain from another company came over and started screaming "NO DON'T SHUT IT, OPEN IT." He was obviously confused on which way I was pulling the chain, and I yelled back for him to "calm the fuck down." ...Let's just say he didn't like that very much. He began yelling "what do you mean calm down? I AM CALM!!!!" Whatever. It was a misunderstanding and we both apologized to eachother later and it was squashed.

It was a smooth fire, we got outta there around 7 AM, I ran home, showered and went to work.

Creepy graveyard fire

2009-03-29T01:31:00.000-04:00

We trained at the fire academy for hours doing RIT Training (read about it here) and got back into Lodi about 11:30 PM - exhausted. I fell asleep when the pager went off about 1 AM for a "Fire in St. Nick's Cemetary." I thought to myself "what the hell is there to burn in a cemetary" as I walked out of my house and immediately smelt smoke.

As we're driving on the engine to the cemetary we can see the smoke plume and thought a building was on fire, but pulling in gave us a clear view to about 15 or 20 separate brush fires all throughout the cemetary. It looked like a scene from a movie where people are holdling a seance in a graveyard with rings of fire. As I'm pulling our hoseline off the reels on the side of the engine, I was laughing with our chauffer about how creepy this all was.

Anyway, laughter turned to labor as we stretched and charged all 250 feet of our attack line (inch and 3/4 diameter) and began putting out the fires. They were spaced out enough that after hitting one fire, we had to lift and move the entire length of charged hoseline over and around tombstones and corners to reach the next fire. We did this about 5 times in total until the reach of the stream was far enough to hit the last, and furthest fire. Let's just say my shoulders got a good workout this night.

My guess is some punk was walking around with a box of matches and just went to town, since we saw a lot of tombstones knocked over as well (along side the few that our hoseline happened to shift or push.)

Pinto Garbage Truck Fire

2009-02-05T11:34:00.003-05:00

We're moving apartments, and I was exhausted and fell asleep around 9:30 PM. When the call came through, dispatch said a caller reported a "fire inside the complex of Pinto's on Route 46." I woke up and was in a daze, confused on which apartment I was even in. At the firehouse, only 4 of us showed up in total.

We came down Rt. 46 and I didn't see smoke or anything yet. AJ called back to us from the front officer's seat and told Brian to get the hydrant, wrapping both of our rear 3 inch lines around the hydrant as we slowly rolled forward. I jumped out and pulled both line's off our rear reels so he'd have enough length. I went to grab tools when AJ said "forget the tools, we'll work off their truck, lets just go."

When we got close enough, I saw it was a garbage truck fully involved, and the Chief ran up screaming for us to hurry and get up there. Once again, I hate when people get hyper at car-fires if there's no exposures to concern us. The truck is already a loss, why should we run in 15 degree weather when there's black ice everywhere just to gain 10 seconds on a fire that's already totalled the truck or car.

Anyway, the safety officer yelled at 2 guys from Engine 614 to mask-up, so I dropped to a knee, masked up and walked over to back up the former Lieutenant of another company on his 1 3/4 inch line. Fire was ripping through the front cab of the truck, but after a few seconds of straight-stream, the fire quickly darkened down. We hit it again in the wheel wells before walking around to the front to see if it was completely out. It was, for the most part, so we continued just hitting hot spots before quickly putting up a ladder to view down into the truck for any other extension.

Going back to pack up at the engine, I learned that Brian didn't wrap one of the 3-inch lines tight enough around the hydrant and as the engine drove forward, the line got loose and was pulled down the street. Left with just one line, he hooked it to the hydrant but opened the hydrant too early when a Chief called for water, when he should have waited for his Driver/Pumper to call for water instead. The water flow caught the driver off guard but he got it under control in time.

Things like stretching lines, wrapping hydrants, and pulling hose off our reels are the essential things at every fire, but it seems our guys have gotten so cocky with their knowledge of our engine that they don't want to drill on those things anymore. Then we get stupid little mistakes like these that could really cause havoc if it had been a structure fire instead of a truck fire.

Screaming at a car fire

2009-02-02T10:18:00.002-05:00

As I'm driving down Rt. 46 to Home Depot we get paged out to a car fire on Kipp Ave. We're busy Scotting up when we pull up behind the house where the car is. The car happens to be next to a white fence in someone's back yard. I hear screaming on the radio really loud as the Captain of another engine company is yelling "I NEEEED WATER NOWWW." It so happens their engine was nearly out of water when they pulled up but instead of waiting, they still stretched a line and tried to do what they could.

It still amazes me at how excited even some of these seasoned men can get at a car fire. Unless a car is against a building or other exposure, and unless there's someone trapped inside, there is NEVER a time for excitement in a car fire. By the time we get there and start putting water on it, it will always be past the point of being totalled anyway. There is no saving a car in a fire and no point to get people hurt trying.

Hearing a Captain screaming at the top of his lungs like that, seeing the panic in his face, and watching him yell at someone later to get a saw to cut the hood is disheartening to see. We're supposed to look at these older guys for guidance and to keep us new guys calm, not to get us ralled up for no reason.

...and to think, this guy wants to run for chief next year...

Mutual Aid - Woodridge House Fire

2009-01-26T16:55:00.002-05:00

Saturday night I went snowboarding, got home late and fell asleep around 1 AM. About 5 Am, dispatch requested our engine to Woodridge to stand by at their firehouse for a working house fire. As I'm running down the stairs without my car keys, I stop short and run back up to grab them when dispatch states Woodridge now wants us to the scene to go to work.

Running into headquarters, 3 guys were there ahead of me so the Chief told them to go ahead in the Rescue Truck since Woodridge "needed" manpower asap, so I waited a few more minutes for a couple of guys, then we started off.

When we got to the scene, we staged around the block but it was still dark out and I could see flames blowing out a window and a plume of smoke. I helped the Chief gear up and we walked to the scene with our SCBA, axes and halligans and flashlights.

We were told to stand by as a F.A.S.T. Team, and we basically watched them fight the fire for an hour. Woodridge has 60 minute air bottles, and they must have did a solid interior attack for 3/4 of that limited time, I was impressed. I know how exhausting it is and 45 minutes of solid firefighting is enough to knock anyone on his / her ass.

Basically all we were useful for that night was to pack up their hose, which was rough since in the 9 degree weather, everything that had even gotten misted was now a sheet of ice. We helped pack up 5-inch line that, with the solid, frozen contents, probably weighed 200lbs per length. I've never seen inch 3/4 line freeze SOLID before, making rolling and folding impossible. The sub-pumps we were using to pump out the basement after a long fire attack were hosing down nearby trucks, people and EMS gurneys, turning them almost instantly into ice sculptures.

This reminds me of the fire on December 9, 2006 where my wet jacket froze solid and I had icy water in my boots after the water-main in the basement fire broke.

Car vs Pole - Car wins!!

2009-01-13T13:38:00.003-05:00

Just walked in the door and the pager goes off (around 2:50 AM) for a "motor vehicle accident with entrapment." I didn't even notice the address given, which was right down the street from my house on First Street, nor did I hear the accident when it occurred. There were enough of us that responded to the firehouse that most of our guys went with the Rescue truck, yet me and 2 other guys rode with the Engine.

When we got there, the guy's car was on its side, a wooden utility pole was slightly tilted, and the Rescue-Jacks were already in place stabilizing the car from rolling or pitching. I stretched a hoseline off the Engine to the front of the car before a Chief brought my attention to the leaning utility pole right above my head. I then restretched the line in a safer direction and stayed there with one of our new guys.

Turns out the driver was very drunk, and comical. He wasn't hurt at all and was able to climb out the sunroof once two of our guys ripped it off. Then he said "I hope no one else was hurt," to which we said "Sir, you were the only one in the car" to which he replied "I was???" Also, while sitting in the ambulance he made us promise to let him know when the ambulance got there. We got quite a kick out of that.

The odd part of the accident was that there was quite a bit of split wood sitting next to the wooden utility pole that he hit, yet the pole was pretty straight on the ground with no visible damage. The car ended up taking a 3 foot section right off the bottom of the pole, and the pole simply dropped down 3 ft into its original hole. Pretty cool once I realized what I was looking at.

Second view of the John Street Fire

2008-11-10T12:52:00.006-05:00

While knocking on doors for a fundraiser yesterday, I approached the house that had the May 2007 fire on John Street. The owner seemed very grateful for the good job we did and invited me in to take a look. It took a while for me to get my bearings once in the basement, first because we entered from the rear and he took me this time through the front, and secondly because everything just looks a lot different in broad daylight as compared to a smoke filled hotbox.

He showed me that the fire started behind a boiler that was having problems, and I saw where it worked up the wall and up to the spot where the fireball blew out at me and my current lieutenant. The guy was grateful but said his father was angry that we, the firemen, tore up the walls and broke windows. Civilians sometimes don't understand that 95% of the damage we do is for investigation or fire-stop purposes, or to improve the inferno-like conditions a house can take during a fire for our crews.

Broken windows is our main source of ventilation, which means less heat, more oxygen and better visibility for the guys inside, and these are vital. Taking down walls is an attempt to find hidden fire, or paths the fire might be taking as it travels through the walls and floors of a dwelling. The guy seemed to understand this all but reminded me of how sometimes our actions are misunderstood and house owners think firemen are just bulls in china shops. We made a great, quick stop that day ONLY because we opened up the walls and ceiling and found the fire before it took over completely.

DUI Rollover on Rt. 17

2008-10-27T14:02:00.001-04:00

I decided to stay in Saturday night and hang out, and about 2 AM we got a call for a rollover with entrapment in the parking lot of Home Depot and National Wholesale Liquidators, which borders Route 17. I raced to the firehouse and while I was getting geared up I heard them mention on the radio that the victim was out safely.

The truck veered off the highway at a reasonably high speed, slammed into raised train tracks, hit its nose into a ditch and ended up flipping and sliding. All the contents of the truck were smushed out the back and the roof was smashed in everywhere except the drivers cabin. The guy's lucky to be alive.

Burn victim dies

2008-10-23T14:13:00.001-04:00

The burn victim I spoke about in the last post, I just found out, has died. I hear the shock, coupled with infections had weakened his heart and it finally gave out about 2 weeks after the incident. I thought we did a great job and got him out quick, but apparently it wasn't enough...

Severe burn victim

2008-10-10T14:58:00.002-04:00

Last friday I was working at home and we get called out to St. Joseph's Blvd. for an activated fire alarm. In the past, we've encountered many situations where a typical "fire alarm" or "carbon monoxide alarm" turns into something much more. Sometimes while driving to the false alarm we'll even get paged out to an actual working car or structure fire. This is why I make every attempt to make all alarms, cause you never know.

Anyway, upon arrival I heard a bunch of chatter on the radio but couldn't tell what the Chief was saying. Getting off the truck, something felt odd. I asked John, who was riding in the officer's seat, what was up but he didn't know. Then the Chief says "check upstairs, we might have a burn victim." Walking up the stairs, there was no alarm going off but there was an odd smell of burning, maybe food on the stove.

Walking into the kitchen, an elderly man, maybe around 60 years old, was laying on the floor holding his obviously burned arm. When I looked closer, the back of his head was burned very bad, his right arm was charred with the black skin actually rolling off it already, and his right side and back were burnt up pretty bad. Whatever burnt him also burnt away half his shirt and some of the top of his pants.

I threw my coat, hood, Scott pack and tools to the side and put on latex gloves. Then I helped another crew member prop the victim up onto a chair before cutting the rest of his shirt and pants off. He was very aware and told us his shirt caught fire while cooking. Then his son chimed in and said he heard the alarm going off and when he walked in, his dad was on the floor, non responsive and on fire. The man at this point wasn't feeling pain yet and trying to convince us he didn't need to go to the hospital. My buddy explained that the pain didn't hit yet but will soon, and boy was he right.

As I'm scanning the man's body, I'm noticing his arm won't move, the skin was charred black and rolling off and in some spots, charred so deep that it was pink, almost red with the blood being that close to the surface. Then the man went into shock, something I've never seen before. His eyes became wide, he looked up and became non-responsive. I thought personally that he was having a heart attack and I got very nervous. Someone ran downstairs for the backboard while we yelled, trying to get the guy's attention (unsuccessfully.) When the backboard came, we unwrapped it in lightning speed and put the man on it, when one of our guys and the Chief proceeded to bring him down to the stretcher as fast as they could. All the while, his wife was screaming "he's dying, he's dying."

They treated him on the ambulance and brought him to the burn center, where now I hear his condition worsened and he might not make it. Just goes to show that even "typical" and "standard procedure" alarms can often turn out to be much more.

Shoprite Car fire flying solo

2008-08-11T10:03:00.003-04:00

Good thing it was a pretty relaxed weekend with a lot of sleep as last night (sunday) I got paged out to a car fire around 3:30 AM. I got to the firehouse and there was no one there yet. I geared up and only two more guys came. One drove, I took the officer's seat and the third jumped in the back. We could see a tower of smoke in the sky as we got near. It was a parking lot of a Shoprite and the car was cranking with fire blowing out of the engine, both wheel wells and the interior seats were burning pretty good.

I jumped out of the engine and Jay pulled the front hoseline off and stretched it out for me then handed me the nozzle. As I got closer to the car I put my mask on, since the Chiefs are big ball busters about being on air if getting close to a car fire, both for respiration reasons as well as face protection. The water came just as another engine pulled up, and one of their guys ran up to back me up on the line. I started hitting the front wheel well, which had fire blowing out of it at this point, and I shot at the side windows quickly as I wasn't sure if they were still there or if they were broken through yet, but the water reached far so that answered that question.

I shut down the water as someone came with a K12 saw and made a horizontal cut right across the hood of the car to get to the engine compartment. Finally opening that up like a sardine can, I got water on the burning engine before walking to the rear of the car and shooting water up into the rear wheel well in an attempt to keep the gas tank cool. Me and the backup guy musta walked around the car 3 times, putting water on whatever was burning, before the fire finally dimmed down. I then looked to the right and there was another black SUV pretty close with some burning crap down by the tires, so I hosed the truck down just to keep it cool.

Finally someone took the saw to the trunk and we got that open, and the fire was finally out. Looking into the car, I saw that the steering column actually melted away, as well as the rubber on the steering wheel, leaving a bare metal circle sitting on the floor. Looking back, it would have made a great souvenier for the firehouse had I thought about grabbing it.

Magic Touch Carwash Fire

2008-07-29T10:36:00.008-04:00

I went to Little Ferry for a standby the night before, which kept me awake from 12 am to 7 am, then I showered and went to work. I came home early and slept for a half hour before we got a call for a fire at National Wholesale Liquidators, which ended up being nothing. I came home and fell asleep when we got another call for a fire at the Magic Touch Carwash on Route 17. This time it was for real.

When I got to the firehouse and started gearing up, we got a re-dispatch confirming that there was a working fire. We rolled out with a full boat, including 3 truckies because the truck didn't yet roll. On the way in everyone was hyper, and this increased as we got closer and saw the heavy smoke. I yelled at Jack that we were going to take the left side reel, and he agreed that I should go with the nozzle and he'll pull the whole reel off. Then someone yelled that we'll need a saw for the roll down gates.

We had just purchased a K12 saw, so I told Jack to NOT pull the hand line and just come with me with the saw. When I looked up I saw a huge amount of heavy fire just swirling and blowing out of the bay of the carwash. It was pretty intense, but the first thing I usually look at in my size-ups is the exposures. There was one exposure, the office part of the carwash, and it had a big roll down security gate with light smoke rolling out from the top of it. I felt it, and the glass door next to it, and everything felt cool.

We decided to cut the gates but had to wait for water. When the lines finally charged, I went to work with the saw, cutting a big upside-down V in the door. I made sure to make it wide enough to fit a fireman and equipment very comfortably. The sparks were raining down on my mask and just covering my whole body, musta looked pretty cool from an outside perspective. My forearms began to burn a little as I had to make multiple passes since the doors were double paned. Finally, I made sure the nozzle-man was ready and one solid kick dropped the panel to the inside. The smoke wasn't as heavy as we expected and a further inspection showed there wasn't any flames or heat inside at all.

The chief then got the keys to the glass door and a team of 4 of us made our way inside for a search which proved negative for flames or heat - the fire was simply confined to the bay area where they wash and change oil. Coming outside, the fire was blowing more violently than ever, and almost looked like a fire storm just churning inside. After putting a 2 1/2 inch line, a 1 3/4 line and water from a master stream into action, the fire was knocked down within 10 minutes.

Water supply was an issue, but all in all it was a quick knock down considering the fire load. We brought the foam unit in the end to put a layer of AAAF down on the oil inside the oil pits so that wouldn't catch. Some overhaul and a long clean-up process later we were on our way home.

Farnham Ave House Fire - Garfield

2008-07-21T10:52:00.004-04:00

Most of my company was at my buddy's girlfriend's surprise party, in the pool actually when we heard our company get paged out to Garfield for a mutual aid request to standby at their firehouse for a working house fire. Our chief soon got a call on his cell stating Garfield wants us to the scene instead of standing by. We all jumped in his SUV and hauled ass to Lodi.

Most of our gear was on the engine so we ran and got geared up and walked up to the staging area in front of the house. I saw some small amounts of smoke coming from the eves, 2 handlines stretched into the front door and a ton of mutual aid towns standing by. A minute after we arrived, Garfield's chief asked for two crews to relieve some of the manpower, one crew to the fire floor and one crew to the roof. My captain and I went up to the fire floor.

I walked up stairs avoiding the 2 charged handlines and the closer i got to the top of the stairs the hotter it got. At the top of the stairs it was really hot and I asked my Cpt if he wanted to tie in on air yet, he said to just get onto the landing and tie in. When we got into the room the heat subsided a bit. The room we first entered looked to be a kitchen, with a living room to the right, and a small hallway to the left which lead to the fire room. The fire was almost completely knocked down, but we took out the remainder of the windows to vent the room.

Operations officer told us to open up the ceiling above the door in which we entered. I took an ax to the walls while my captain took a pike pole to the ceiling. We had a good amount pulled down, with embers and little smoking pieces falling down with every stroke. The roof team began cutting the roof above our heads, a little towards the door. We unmasked after a few minutes when the heat went down enough and most of the smoke cleared. With a few more pounds on the sheetrock we had enough exposed for the Operations officer to put an end to the overhaul.

When I got outside I felt nauseous. I downed a few bottles of water before I heard that while on the roof, one of our guys took the butt-end of a pike pole to the eye. He went to the hospital where they said his cornea was scratched, nothing too serious.

Deli Fire on Main Street

2008-06-06T10:46:00.006-04:00

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.

Basement Fire on Chestnut

2008-04-11T11:43:00.002-04:00

Same time as the carfire last nite, around 2 AM, we get called out to reports of an "air conditioner on fire." Fire, being one of the keywords I look for in a dispatch, got me revved up. We had a pretty full boat and every one was throwing elbows to get their shit on in the truck. Captain looked back and said he's taking the first line, and 2 guys yelled they're with him on the first line. I then yelled that me, John and Jack are on the second line.

We pulled up first due, got off and unreeled our backup line off the officer's side perfectly. Unreeling it 100% is one of our deficiencies as a company, because sometimes people get too hyped up at a fire, unreel it half way or 3/4 and just run to the door, but last nite was better.

I saw the first team go in, so my team masked up and followed them in with a smooth boor. Visibility was still pretty good so I didn't go on air right away. I saw an air conditioner unit on fire, and extension up into the wall and some of the cieling above it. I gave a few short bursts over the first team, just enough to hit the fire a bit but not enough to wet them because I know how much this pisses me off when people give me a douching because they're trigger happy.

Our big guy, Jeff, went on a rampage taking walls and cielings with his gloved hands. I guess he couldn't wait for a tool, and he started punching and pulling the sheetrock like it was tissue paper. He's a big guy and real aggressive when he's pumped up, so we sat and watched the show, laughing from time to time. My backup guy was sent into another room to do a search and we got called to bring a line upstairs for extension.

Going upstairs, we found heavy smoke condition but no visible flame. We opened up much of the walls and ceiling, moving the ton of furniture and clothing out of our way in the process. Jeez they had a ton of piles of clothes in the place.

All in all we did a text-book stop with no fuck-ups that I can remember.

Car from Fort Knox

2008-04-10T10:04:00.003-04:00

Around 2 AM we get called out to a carfire at a local used car dealership. I know those cars to sit very close to eachother, so I pictured 2 or 3 cars involved by the time we get there. I was wrong, it was only 1. It took our captain a minute or so to cut the fence using bolt cutters to let us in. There were 5 of us, and as I mentioned in the past posts, carfires to firemen are like chum to sharks. JK immediately jumps on the first nozzle, which he's known to do at every single fire we ever get, and I grab the second. It took a few mins to get water, and the fire wasn't too crazy, mostly in the right front wheel well, extending into the engine.

I took a halligan and walked around to the driver side window and took the window down in one swift motion, then reached in and opened the door. I tried the hood release after catching some water in the face from the hose team on the other side, and the hood release was obviously burnt out. I closed the door and the gruelling task of opening a hood without a saw began.

When I was a probie I attended an extrication class behind the local Boys & Girls club using some donated cars. My friend Jack and I, joining at the same time, usually attended all the same training and paired up as often as possible. Since the drill was a free-for-all anyway, Jack and I decided to try to get into the trunk of a car using only a halligan and ax. We pried, pulled, smashed, whacked and bent the shit out of the trunk for 15 minutes before giving up. The pin and catch inside is just too strong for standard tools.

Back to the car fire last nite, we tried the Rabbit tool, which is a handheld spreader that operates like a car-jack, the front release (which was burnt away), halligans, axes...etc. We tried everything before finally I gained access to, what ended up being 3 pins under the front lip of the car with a long set of bolt-cutters.

Annoying as it was, we did a pretty good job at gaining access using nothing but the tools we had to work with.

Car Fire at DMV - and the audience goes wild

2008-03-12T10:15:00.003-04:00

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

2008-03-10T11:40:00.004-04:00

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.

6:00 AM Freeze-a-thon

2008-02-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

At 6:00 AM we get toned out for a "fire in the trailer court." Usually I don't respond to firecalls after 5:00 AM unless it's an actual fire, since I have to wake up at 7:30 for work, it's not worth the lack of sleep to put batteries in some old lady's Carbon Monoxide detector. I was sleeping in shorts and a tshirt, and in a mad rush I ran out of the house wearing that, plus shoes and a jacket. Little did I know it was only 11 degrees out. I'm shaking and speeding my way down to the firehouse. Of course, it ended up being nothing. The caller smelt smoke, which was diesel smoke from a truck next door. I want to smack people like that in the face so hard. It's early in the AM, we're flying like maniacs in our cars, there could be anything from drunks to business men on the roads or walking to cars. One day someone's gonna get killed on the way to a bullshit call because the caller said "fire" when in reality it was burnt popcorn.

Bottom line - I feel fire prevention should advise people how to call in a fire when we do fire prevention week every year. It's always geared towards the children, but it seems the adults need some counceling as well.

DUI MVA

2008-02-04T12:26:00.000-05:00

I was sound asleep when we got paged out for an accident involving a possible "ejection." I've never heard them say that word over the pager before so I knew it would be something good. We had a decent small crew and got to Route 80 pretty quick. Hackensack was already finishing up their extrication which indicated they had been on seen already before we got toned out.

Upon closer inspection it was a silver Jeep Commander and the windshield was forced out to a point, indicating someone definitely slammed their head or body up against it with enough force for it to separate from the dashboard at the base where they meet. We stood around waiting for some work but I mentioned we should step back and give Hackensack some space.

The only time I did anything was when the Hackensack guys pulled out the hydrollic spreaders just to pop the hood, when I stepped up and got my hand under it and was able to feel and release the hatch. Sometimes people are quick to pull out the destructive tools without trying easier, obvious methods first - something Lance taught me a long time ago, god rest his soul. He was good at taking young guys under his wing and showing them how to keep their cool and not overlook obvoius things on the fire scene.

The rear of the truck had blood on it and a pool of blood on the ground and the side rear door had been removed or extrication purposes. As far as I know, there was only one victim who was dead, and I watched as they carried his limp body away on a board. That's the second fatality I've seen in an MVA in a year.

I was published in Firehouse Magazine!

2008-01-15T15:50:00.000-05:00

There has been an ongoing issue in Firehouse Magazine when it comes to seatbelts in the cabs of fire engines and trucks. It's so damn hard to put seatbelts on when you already have the thick bunker gear and airpack on, nevermind the excitement which makes it easy to forget even the best intentioned.

I wrote Firehouse an article about my idea. All Scott Pak's, and other SCBA, are held in the jumpseat by a round bracket that makes it easy for firemen to lean forward and pop the pack out once it's strapped on their arms and waste. Yes, I say the pack is already strapped on. So why, might one ask, are we looking towards yet a 4th belt to pass over a firefighter's body, to act as restraint?

What if the SCBA's harness was actually held to that bracket? Then yes, the firefighter too would be held in restraint to the seat. Problem is, we need to get up and out, and we need to do this fast. So the easy suggestion I had was to position a quick-release button or lever right between your legs on the seat. When activated, just like a seatbelt, the SCBA's bracket would release from the seat and the Firefighter could stand up and fight another day.

Thanks to firehouse for posting this idea of mine and I hope I've inspired someone to maybe take it a step further and get it into production.

Glad I could amuse

2008-01-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

It's been slow lately, so when we got paged out to a fire alarm at Felician college, I decided to have a little fun. We arrived and walked downstairs and followed the sound of flowing water and horrible sound until we found the source - a broken sprinkler head deep in a utility room. We had to crawl under ducts and through vertical beams until we could reach the area where the water was just pissing out. My captain immediately joked that one of us should go and try to chock it (technique used to wedge a doorstop or two in the open area to block the sprinkler's orifice.)

As I mentioned, times are slow so I volunteered. I stripped my gear of anything I didn't want to get wet, including my mask and pack, but kept my jacket on in a futile attempt to protect my clothing. So minutes later, there I was standing under a sieve of water flowing probably like 40 gallons a minute onto my head, face and hands, while I tried to jam a chock in something I couldn't even see, and barely felt with my frozen finger tips. The water was damn cold and at this point just shooting me square in the face, causing me to drop my shield down.

We stood back after I got it semi-chocked and saw there was a red wire gate covering the sprinkler head which was why I couldn't get the chock in there. All in all, the attempt was pointless but at least everyone got a good laugh about it all, even me. I stopped laughing when I walked outside into the 30 degree weather though haha.

Pallette fire - contant ave

2007-11-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

Here's another fire blog. It was a Saturday night around 2:00 AM. The tones came through reporting a caller who saw flames. Whenever I hear flames, its a much better bet than someone reporting smoke or fire. Fire can mean very different things to different people, from a cigarette smoldering to a warehouse burning. However, flames universally means the bright red things.

Anyhow, we were short manned which usually means a much tighter, smoother operation. Huge flames were visible from blocks away. John and I came off and stretched a handline. What we saw was a van fully involved, a dumpster on fire, and a huge pallet stack leaning on a building on fire. John was on the nozzle but I immediately told him to forget the van and dumpster and lets just go after the pallettes since they were up against the exposure.

AJ, my Capt, came along and had us sweep more to the side so we can get a direct shot at the pallettes. Soon a tire blew out, making us all jump, and as we got really close, another tire blew out, probably about 10 feet from us, sounding like a shotgun. AJ brought us right between the dumpster fire and the van, so it got nice and toasty, and at one point we had 0 visibility and john was just blasting away with the handline. I remember having my hand on the back of his bottle so i could stay with him, while the other hand was pulling the line.

It took a good minute or minute and a half to get the pallettes under control before we turned to the van. The van was pretty well involved, with flames shooting out from under it, but we took that down eventually also.

Later I took the line and climbed on top of the stack to wet down the palletes from above and from the exposure side, since flames and embers were still visible as per the crew on the roof.

This was a really cool fire to fight because the situation was safe enough to walk pretty much right into the fire, with the dumpster to the left and van to the right. Visibility was horrible with the smoke, but we did a text-book stop. We protected the exposures first, then turned to the van, then to the harmless dumpster. Everyone was safe and no one got hurt.

Oh I did get yelled at for taking a ladder down on its beam by one of the truckies though.

Car fire on Albert St.

2007-11-12T10:30:00.000-05:00

I was sick and went home from work early. I had promised myself not to get up for any fire calls, but around 7:30 PM a report of an "explosion" came through. Now usually explosion can mean anything from a pop / fizzle from a tv to a transformer going out, but rarely does it mean fire. I went anyway.

It ended up being in the trailer courts, and upon pulling around the bend, the smoke was obvious. Kaz already had his mask on in the engine, which i thought was a little rediculous ( i busted his balls for it later. ) I havent been on a long time, but rarely agree with putting a mask on in the engine. It takes under 20 seconds to don a mask / helmet and tie in to the regulator, so to run off the engine blinded by a fogging mask seems unnecessary to me. I'd rather don at the front door and take the extra ten seconds.

Anyway, I thought it was a fire in a trailer, which got me a little nervous since I know how tight, messy and crammed they can be, let alone the minefield of things to get snagged on. It ended up being a car fire in between two trailers, so we had 2 exposures to keep cool while working on the fire.

To begin with we had way too many firemen around. Later, pictures revealed like 8 guys on a handline. Dangerous if something were to go wrong - let alone embarassing after the fact. AJ took the saw to the front hood, which made an awesome shower of sparks that covered a few of us, making for some good photo ops.

Fire knocked down in minutes, both trailers unharmed.

Midnight house fire

2007-07-09T14:26:00.000-04:00

About 12:50 AM last night the tones came through for "reports of a house fire." I bolted down to the firehouse, geared up and was the 2nd one on the engine, giving me plenty of time to put my pack on and settle in. AJ started yelling names of who he wants on each nozzle, but he musta gotten confused cause he named like 5 or 6 people and we were all confused. Jeff G grabbed the first nozzle when we got there and ran. I grabbed the second one and ran with it as Ricky pulled it off the reel. The reel even got stuck at one point but he got it.

When i got to the rear of the house I saw the fire, which was a big square on the aluminum siding. I realized no one brought tools at all, and I saw AJ run and get a water can as the water to the hose was delayed (unprepared.) I went and got tools and when I came back, me, Guyre and Pernice went inside and started chipping away at the wall behind the fire, looking for extension.

John and I then ran to the other rooms to look for the electric box. When we got to the kitchen, to my utmost suprise there was a lady standing there calmly looking through a drawer. We yelled at her to get out. We then went to the basement where, once again, no one was prepared. I got a water can and met them inside and we did a quick search - no fire. We went back upstairs and saw yet more people. A black guy who was very calm, we told him to leave. Then his wife I saw in the other room and told them to all get out, and she casually walked past.

As I've been saying to AJ all along, we should have designated seats for the nozzle-men, reel pullers and tool/water can men. In that order, these positions must be filled using the men that we have to avoid confusion. Constantly reels aren't getting pulled, or tools / water can are forgotten cause everyone thinks someone else will get them. People are too hyped up to run to the scene to see what we have and things are left behind and undone.

I'm going to bring this up to him soon.

Lance's Funeral

2007-06-26T09:11:00.000-04:00

We had Lance's funeral on June 20, 2007. It was rough and I lost it a few times. I kept my composure until we were standing guard of the casket while all the friends and family said goodbye in the funeral home. Lance's mom broke down and cried and screamed. I had tears.

We held the casket which wasn't as heavy as I thought, and the two doors to the funeral home opened up to the entire Lodi Fire Department saluting us. I wanted to cry but kept my composure.

We went to the firehouse where we backed in and they raised the bay doors for his final call. The Lodi dispatcher read off a great speech which i put on LodiFire.com, and I watched as grown men wept like kids.

We brought him to the crematorium and that was that. I never completely lost composure but I had eyes full of tears the entire day - especially at the church where the friends and family touched the casket to say goodbye and AJ handed Maggie Lance's helmet. I've seen that in movies, recently in Ladder 49, but to see it in life touches your heart. It was very hard to experience.

Lance Died

2007-06-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

Saturday night I got a call from AJ telling me that actions were being taken to take Lance off his respirator. A few hours later I got confirmation that he had passed.

I went down to the firehouse and stayed with the guys for a bit. The following day, I confirmed with the chief that I wanted to be a pall bearer for Lance's casket. He will be cremated and Greg will take his urn with him until the first house fire. This was Lance's wish for years going back, one he never wrote down but had made a point to us on a few different occassions.

He, ironically, had made me put together a memorial piece for the website with bagpipes playing Amazing Grace just in case someone died on the Fire Dept. He is the second person to make use of the memorial.

Another piece of irony is that directly under Lance's memorial picture is the picture you see to the left, which was him at his last house fire, the basement fire on John St. where I smashed my thumb.

The next two days are going to be extremely tough. I am not prepared to see his little boy, Jake. Also, this will be my first Fire Department funeral, so I am in no way prepared for what I am about to experience.

Lance (pt 1)

2007-06-11T09:18:00.000-04:00

Friday evening, while at the race track, I received a phone call from John Pernice that, as stephanie says, turned my face immediately white. Lance had a stroke and was in very bad shape. I went down to the fire house asap and waited with the guys until 3am, receiving bits of info here and there and sharing some beers and concerns. I woke up saturday morning to the tones going off for an emergency meeting at HQ, which I thought would be it.

At the meeting, I saw my own fire chief, one of the toughest men I know, weep over his best friend's condition. I fought tears as much as I could but when I drove back to my house, I put the car in park in the driveway and cried harder than I have in years. I came inside and ate like a mongrel, and went back to the firehouse to finish cleaning up. I went home to catch an hour's nap, which never happened b/c Kate was home with my cousin and little sister, but I did manage to sleep for about 10 mins.

Upon returning to the firehouse, 6 of us took an awkward car ride to the hospital to visit lance. Greg and AJ tried to prepare us outside, and they did the best they could. We all walked like soldiers, in 2 lines wearing the same company shirt, into the room and said our goodbyes and thank you's.

I thanked him for everything he's given me and taught me, and for always having my back. He defended me whenever people got on my back about the website, or about a judgement call at a firecall, or whatever. He was always there and this is not easy in any way.

Last night a priest came by Greg's house to talk to us, but he was little help. I explained my frustration at this point because we are all problem solvers, that's what we do, but now Lance has a problem and we can't solve it. We can't help him. Even though he always helped us, we can't do anything for him and that sucks - bad.

Maybe it was the caffeine or maybe not but I barely slept last night, I fell asleep around 3, got up at 4 to go to the bathroom, and slept okay from 430 to 630. It's hitting me hard and I'm very depressed over this. I told my mom, and I felt weird but it's true - this has hit me much harder than when my own grandmother passed - being that at least we expected that. Also, Lance was a brother and a great friend to me, and I looked up to him greatly.

The near future will be extremely difficult.

Tower or Frying Pan?

2007-05-30T16:14:00.000-04:00

Last night we had the second of 4 nights of Rolling Response in Firefighter 2. It was very tiresome. They started by doing a live burn using pallettes on the first floor. The fire got cranking and we could feel the heat from the door frame. The first evolution put me with Jack and some other kid onto the third floor, where we did a search, went down a flight, searched the second floor and came out - a little warm, not bad.

Then they sent us in teams of 2, after adding a few more pallettes to the can. The stairwells were acting as chimneys, and that was no joke as the temperature on the stairs was probably around 400 degrees. Up to the second, crawl around room, meet, back to the light, stand, up to the third, rinse lather and repeat. We did this on 4 consecutive flights, exiting the fire escape on the 5th floor.

Let's just say this took about 75% of my energy out completely. Jack was my partner for evolution number 3. Already, the tips of my boots were melted, it felt like there was fire inside my firepants, and I could NOT catch my breath. We tirelessly walked up 5 flights of fire escape stairs, stopping on every platform to rest momentarily. I ended up going in with someone else however.

Upon entering, the floor was hot - I mean really hot. As we got closer to the ground floor, the ground heated up 100x on every floor. By the third floor, it was almost unbearable on my hands and knees, and nearly burning right through my gear. I felt like I was crawling on a frying pan.

When we finally got out (a little early since the kid's bottle ran out), I nearly passed out. I hurriedly took all my gear off except for my fire pants, which I opened to let the burning hot air out. When I went to take a piss, my belt buckle, which was safely under my firepants, was even hot - very hot - to the touch.

RIT Training

2007-05-23T09:13:00.000-04:00

Last night up at the firegrounds we had RIT training. Aside from when they made us take a charged 3 inch line up 3 rounded flights of stairs, this was the most daunting, grueling and exhausting task they've had us complete to date. This all took place in the maze in complete darkness.

The first time they had this smaller kid as the victim, Eddie and his friend Whelen from Dumont were the first team in. Jack and I, being the second team in, were waitng outside, communicating via radio. Finally, they asked for our assistance. Jack took off quick leaving me fiddling with the radio behind him. Once I finally got a response, he told me he went through the tunnel so I followed, navigated a turn and immediately got caught up in the wires, which apparently they did a good job adding to and dropping them lower. After about 3 minutes of detangling myself, I finally got to the point where we all met up. I helped hold the wires while they dragged the victim using a rope. I helped jack push the victim through the tunnel when I heard Eddie's low air alarm going off and him screaming that he was entangled in the wires.

Jack yelled at me to stay with him by the front door but I said no, and I went back. Jack followed. We found eddie panicking in the wires with his low air bell going and slowly got him detangled. The wire was snug around the back of his bottle and I probably shoulda just cut it off, an idea that DID strike me but I didn't follow up on it.

The second time I was the victim.

The third run, Jack and I were the first team in. Eddie (fatass) was the victim. My leg cramped while crawling over a mattress coil and getting the RIT pack caught up. Jack waited and when we finally got back together, we continued on to find Eddie laying on his back. I found it very difficult to get through to Jack, who looked like he was panicking a little. He was looking for Eddie's straps and NOT listening at all. After a while I stopped and screamed JACK - LISTEN TO ME. He stopped and looked at me. Finally I got my point across that he should secure Eddie's pack between his legs while I secure the RIT pack. We both got done at the same time with a smooth transition of bottles.

As we started dragging Eddie to the beams, I passed through them and started pulling Eddie when Jack's bell started going off, indicating he was out of air. Immediately I had Jack pass over Eddie and leave the building, while I replaced him. Eddie was a bitch to get out and barely helped. I shoulda punched him in the balls to get him moving. Towards the door we encountered a mattress coil which the guy in front of me held up while I pushed Eddie and his father pulled. Once I was right on the kid, I held the mattress up and told him to continue on.

The fourth and final run, I was second team with Whelen, while the kid and his father were first team, Jack was the victim. After what seemed like 10 minutes, we got called in and I helped the one kid secure Jack's pack on backwards, after slowly realizing they took his other pack completely off. This created a great grip on Jack, who now had 2 handles on his shoulders proving great leverage. To me, this was the smoothest run as we got him out in a few minutes flat.

All in all, this traning was daunting, but effective. A few times when I was out of breath, I felt dizzy and disoriented. I could tell how scary that could be in a real and dangerous environment. Also, I controlled my breathing very well and am proud to say my low air alarm never went off all nite. Others, however, had low air alarms left and right which made the situation very scary and realiastic, seeing how a rescuer can become another victim, or freak out and make things worse. Finally, the physical exhaustion made me realize my legs are not nearly powerful enough to propel me on the ground while dragging someone. They tired easily and my thigh cramped up a few times. Also, even though I polished off a bottle of water prior to the exercise, I felt very dehydrated.

Still, there's no better feeling than ripping off my mask once I'm out of there and getting a good, deep breath of cool fresh air.

John Street Fire

2007-05-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

We got a call about 9am on a sunday morning for a basement fire - everyone's out. I got to the firehouse a little bit late and they were just about to roll out without me. I opened the door and threw my gear on then jumped on. I took off my shoes and threw them behind the jumpseats and geared up on the way. I just got finished when we arrived and everyone jumped off. I was a little slow getting off cause i was still putting a pack on.

When i got to the rear of the house, AJ yelled to me and John Pernice to start venting the basement windows. Without gloves, i grabbed a halligan and started uppercuttingi the low windows. Little did i know that i was smashing my bare right thumb between the halligan and the cement window sill on every swing - i was too hyper to notice. In the rear of the house, I showed John my thumb which was now gushing blood and had a purple, swollen nail. Louie Ruffell asked if i was still okay to go in - of course i was, and painfully put my fire glove on.

After (new) chief Maiola masked up and went to go in with Pernice, he decided to have John and I go in to back up the basement crew, which consisted of AJ, John Kaz (nozzle) and my uncle. We followed the hoseline till we came into voice proximity of the crew - thick smoke. I had a short sheetrock pull and john had a short hook. As per AJ's request we started pulling down walls looking for extension. I hit some wires and backed off from that spot. When we rounded the corner we looked up and saw cieling tiles that were kinda off track - and i could see dancing orange flames behind them.

Some bright soul pulled the tile right above my head and a big fireball engulfed me and pernice's helmets. We pulled a way and backed off a bit till they put water on it. John Kaz fog vented and the smoke cleared a bit. I assisted him in pointing out hot spots as he put the rest of it out. When his air ran out, I grabbed the nozzle and soaked the rest of the smouldering wood and fuel down. Holes were ripped in the cieling above our heads big enough that we could watch the truck company working.

As usual, i kept my mask on the entire time till it ran out, even though everyoen else unmasked early. I just don't trust that shit.

Pete was there and got good video footage.

Mattress Fire

2007-04-26T11:50:00.000-04:00

It was a nice nite out and we got a call around 11pm to smoke in a house. I put a radio on and went upstairs with John Kaz, John Pernice and Jack. When i got into the room (i had a water can) I saw Barkley and Mark from truck co. ripping apart a smouldering mattress and boxspring.

I immediately yelled "lets just get it the fuck out of here" and Mark opened a window. I helped him lift it and throw it out the window (without my gloves, hot water poured over my hands but didnt burn). I then put some water on the box spring and a few guys carried that downstairs.

On the lawn we cut the mattress open further with knives and the probie put water on it.

Radio Fire

2007-04-22T11:52:00.000-04:00

We got toned out one weekend afternoon to a fire in the basement. When we got there, I was the first in crew with Billy Woods and Ricky. I brought the water can and told them to grab tools. The officer told us there's a lot of smoke but the fire's out.

The basement was filled with smoke and Ricky and I walked around in the haze looking for the fire. Billy found it, in the first bedroom on the right. It was a melted radio on a dresser - the room was completely filled iwth smoke. It smelt horrible with the burnt plastic so i put my mask on and went on air so i wouldn't inhale that crap.

Billy picked the radio up and had it removed, and we did some overhaul on the dresser and clothing in the room, then vented. Bob Guyre and Walters came downstairs but went back up when they saw it was all done. I blew black shit out of my nose for hours after.

Freezing Housefire

2006-12-09T14:17:00.003-05:00

There was a fireman's funeral in Carlstadt and I was working at home. About 10:20 AM we get toned out for a basement fire that Police Dept. quickly confirmed. We got to the firehouse and rolled out really light, maybe 3 guys total. This was my second fire out of fireschool so my cherry was popped but I was still hyped up.

It was about 25 degrees out and the wind was whipping fast. We pull up and as I walk down the sidewalk towards the rear, I meet Kaz, Lou and Billy Woods. We get a line stretched to the back and start scotting up as dark smoke is pushing up back at us. There was about 5 steps to the basement, where visibility fell to about 30% in a dark haze. No fire to be found but the smoke was thick.

I dropped down to my knees and realized I was kneeling in about 8 inches of water. Apparently the fire was above us and to the left and was hot enough to melt a water pipe, causing water to flow down the wall. We all searched the basement when the windows were finally taken from the outside. Kaz stuck the nozzle out a window and fog-vented it and we then realized the burst water main had probably knocked the fire down.

When we went upstairs, we found one room that had no floor as the fire had eaten it up about 50%. Good thing things were clear enough to see this before mistakes were made. When I got out, the sloped driveway was slick with ice from our fog-vent. Down towards the truck, my wet fire jacket froze from the wind until it was a block of ice that i could crack just by bending it.

I left the scene early to get new boots since mine were filled halfway with icy water from the basement. Then Kaz calls my cell and said everyone on the scene was looking for me. I made the mistake of not telling the officer I was leaving the scene, stupid probie mistake, and I got severely repremanded for it.
Later on, a picture similar to the one on the left won an award and we all got tshirts for free with it on the back.

First Fire after graduation

2006-10-22T11:41:00.000-04:00

I got dicked on Eval, so I was in my month (seemed like a lifetime) waiting period until the next Eval. Of course I knew we'd get work within that month so I was being a rebel. I put a Scott on at every call, and went into every building for every CO and False Alarm that we had. The other companies hated it, and even my own captain gave me a whole bunch of shit over it.

Anyway, part of my rebellion was taking the shield off my helmet - that dreaded, horrific orange P for "please let me do something." Well low and behold, like 2 days later we got a working fire on grove street. We were all hyped up on the engine, as usual, and Artie woods told me and john to go in with him. We took a handline in through the front door after masking up and crawled up a small staircase to a dining room. There was a lotta smoke. Artie was on the nozzle, with John behind him and I was behind John.

Artie's knees hurt so he backed off and John and I moved up a spot, putting me right behind the front man. A chair kept falling onto John and he kept pushing it off, so I grabbed it with one hand and launched it across the room. Then Moses pushed his way to the front and took the nozzle from John, but John took it back. Someone threw a stuffed Finding Nemo overhead and it ripped open, sending little foam balls all over the place - it was so chaotic. We moved to the edge of the kitchen which was to the floor with smoke.

John put some water around but we couldn't see the flames. I saw some orange glow above us in the kitchen so i pointed it out and John put some water on it. After a while we made no progress and backed down the stairs, where an eager members of another company took the nozzle (later claiming that we bailed out.)

I went to the side of the house and saw a hoseline was burnt open on the ground. We then stood on the side of the house next door and watched the fire through a huge hole in the roof but had no handline to put water on it.

The rest was a surround and drown.

First fire as a probie

2005-11-04T11:37:00.002-05:00

The first fire I ever went to as a probie was on South Main street. I instinctively jumped off the engine at the hydrant and wrapped a double lay around it. A guy from another company and I opened up the hydrant and tied the 2 supply lines into it and walked back to the scene. Crews were around the D side. there was a lot of smoke on the top floor. One of the older guys helped me by teaching me how to use the controls on the rear reels to pick up our hose. Ricky was all excited because they broke out a basement window and put some fire out through there.