Very Long Shift

I've just now caught up on enough sleep and patience to sit down and write this entry. Saturday was absolutely wild! We had a lovely ice storm roll through starting late Friday night. Luckily, my car is front-wheel drive so navigating icy roads was a little easier for me than it was for others. Salt trucks were struggling to keep 2 lanes flowing traffic in each direction on the expressways, side streets were out of the question. I drove the 30+ miles to the station without ever going over 35mph.

It turns out the off-going shift got hammered as the storm rolled in. There were accidents everywhere and cars abandoned on the side of the roads...some upside down because the tow trucks couldn't get enough traction to flip the car so they could load it.

Being a Saturday and therefore, house day, I put my gear on the engine, checked my SCBA, and went to work cleaning the station. I think it was after 0900 before we got our first call. Now, although we ran 18 calls, most weren't the least bit interesting. Somewhere between 1400 and 1500, the EMS gods decided they would start sending trucks to check out "lines down" and "transformer on fire" type calls. Oh fun. I decided it was too cold out so I put on my bunker pants...Hey, so I'm a wuss, it was 26 out with a wind chill of 16- those pants are warm.

1745    or so...

Power goes out, no problem, we have a generator. We fought the generator for who knows how long. It would start up and run easy, it just wouldn't put out any power... Not good considering the bay doors are power operated. Now, if you have automatic garage doors, you may know about the red cord you can pull that releases the door from the chain, allowing you to manually lift the door- bay doors are very large and extremely heavy. Our only escape was the back door which had a chain that could be used to raise and lower the door...slowly.

Call the Battalion Chief, manufacturer, and maintenance man.

Fast forward a bit to around 2000...

Both engine and rescue were dispatched to an EMS call, rescue got a big jump on us getting out of the station. Keep in mind, the roads are nearly frozen over and, being in a reserve engine, we didn't have snow chains so we had to drive slowly and take our sweet time. All day we had avoided incident going to and from calls, only spun the tires on one or two icy hills.    Yeah, well, that changed. The rescue was already onscene and cancelled us just as we're about to go down this gentle hill to a stop sign. (turn left and the call was 3 or 4 houses away) Right at that very moment, I'm looking to my right, out my window...and suddenly I'm starting to see more of the road ahead of us- including the stop sign and the house across the street.

**If you haven't figured it out, the engine was sliding almost completely sideways down the hill.**

OK, my pucker factor just went WAY UP!!!

Looking back, I guess it was lucky the back of the engine bounced off a tree or something and straightened us out, we also regained enough traction to stop (thank God) without even going through the stop sign.

Those 2 goofballs picked on me for hours after that, but I'd never been in any vehicle and slid sideways, much less a 45,000 lb fire truck!

Somewhere around 2100, the power came back on as the maintenance man was leaving with our generator (whatever problem can only be fixed back at his shop).

For the next few hours, call after call came in. Lines down, EMS calls, tree fell on my car, 103yr old needs ride to hospital because she's cold... We were able to sleep 10-20 minutes between each call. At 0600, we had just made it back to the station and I was waiting for the driver to finish the paperwork so I could go to bed. Apparently I looked the part because the seat man (aka officer on the engine) told me it was OK and to go lay down.

0615...call for a house fire in our neighboring territory.

Keep in mind, I'm so used to either false calls or the fire being out, I waited to packout or put on my SCBA. As we're coming around the corner to get onscene, I see it....There she is, in all her glory, the entire backside of the house was a wall of flames.

Switching gears, I jump across and into the seat that has my SCBA and quickly snap the buckle arounds my waist, snatching the straps to tighten it around my waist and shoulders. Now onscene, I jump off and wait for orders. Moments later I'm told to ""find the nearest hydrant"

Right across the street.

OK, set me up a 5" line.

Can't, we don't have any on this reserve truck.

Dammit, well set up everything you can.

Switching gears again, I grabbed both lines off the back of the engine and rush over to the hydrant. Moving quickly back to the engine to retrieve the hydrant bag. Using the wrench, I had to break the ice off before I could unscrew the caps and make the connections. About this time the next unit shows up and it's driver comes over to help. I pass the wrench to him and, letting him know it's all ready to go, he released me to go find another job to do from my officer.

As the moments pass, more units are arriving and I've completely lost my sense of time...bear with me as everything else is in order (at least).

Both crosslays have already been pulled and are at the front door of the house, and by this time the front of the house is rolling as well. My next assignment was to get another line set up to guard exposures. I managed to get my line in place and the driver just finished hooking it up as Command called for the lines to be charged.

I'm told by my officer to just sit tight until someone comes and gets the line, then he'll make sure and get me "in some heat."

I sat on my line and watched as other crews grabbed the lines at the front door and headed inside. As time passed, Command tried to get the interior crew to back out before part of the roof collapsed but they refused. As I  continued to wait, my officer joined me and directed me to aim for a couple places on the roof that were burning. Shortly after, one of the battalion chief's aides was sent over to me. He told me Command was mad at the crews inside, and, since they won't come out, dump 'em. I'll admit, I was grinning like a cheshire cat as I opened the line and arced the stream up so it would fall into the second-story where the roof had now burned through. I kept it open and moved it around some to get full coverage on my "target."

Soon, the fire was deemed under control and a large fan was placed at the front door to clear out some of the smoke. I continued to stand by with my line (now aimed at the house) until my relief finally came. Unfortunatly, it was in the form of the oncoming shift from my station. I grabbed my facepiece and regulator off the air pack, handing it and the line over, and walked away alongside my officer. Both of us madder than I care to decsribe.

On a normal fire scene, the first crew to arrive does the attack on the fire, second due gets water supply, and so-on. We got shitted on (pardon my french). The county has a heavy rescue team that is great at what they do...I've now decided that they're also a bunch of Jakes that want every fire. They were probably 4th or 5th to arrive and decided to grab the lines and run in, the whole time Command was screaming at them to stop and then to back out because of the roof. These guys may be the best trained in the county for confined spaces, search and rescue, entrapment, and everything else- but they are a haughty bunch of assholes in my opinion. Yes, I'm pissed. We finally got a real fire and I had to sit on a stinking exposure line while they went inside and had all the fun. As I was walking to the unit that was going to take us back to the station, a friend called me over. He had been inside and was covered in ash and whatever else. He asked me what I thought and if I'd been inside.

"Nope, I had to sit on the exposure line the whole time. Since 24 decided to take it over I didn't get to go in at all. Figures, we finally got a real fire down here and I get stuck outside the whole time."

He agreed that it sucked being on that line and offered to make sure I went in on the next one. Funny thing is, 24's crew was standing right behind him and watched from the moment he called me over... They didn't look too happy. I guess I wouldn't be happy either knowing a rookie figured out they would've finally had their first fire if another crew would simply do what they were supposed to.