OK, I'm about to just give up on talking to our PIO (Public Information Officer) to try to get pictures of fires I've gone to. It's pointless! He'll tell me that he knows which reporters were there and will talk to them, then never calls me back.

The best I can do is this picture of my helmet, taken after the first house fire. It was shiny black, with the shield looking a brand-new black and white.

After much delay and procrastination, here's what happened. Obviously, I was tailboard on the engine.

As usual, we had a radio on, even though we were at the station and had the encoder to let us know about any calls. We heard the engine in the territory next to us get a fire alarm in our territory. We told radio that we were available and would handle the call in our immediate.  **fire alarm at a residence usually gets 1 engine**

Rolling down the road, we knew the street we were headed to skipped over a block and picked up again. The map we had was labeled wrong for the breaking numbers so we started to go to the far half of the road. That is, until we looked over and saw a cloud of smoke coming from the house on the dead end we just bypassed. Backing up quicker than I'd like to admit, we notified radio that this would be a working fire and that we needed a full response. 

 Since I had all my gear on, I jumped off the engine and did a quick walk-around while the seatman finished getting geared-up. The house was a split-level, and every single ground-level window and door had burglar bars. I could see the house was filled with smoke, but I couldn't see anything else. One of the windows was inches off the ground and had yellowish smoke seeping out the cracks. I quickly relayed my findings as the seatman joined me behind the house. He told me to grab the nozzle and bring it to the door on the far left (per command's orders...other units had started arriving onscene).

Thanks to the burglar bars, it took us a few minutes to gain entry. Once inside, I went to the floor to try and see under the smoke (moments later I stood up, I couldn't see anything anyway and it wasn't hot at all). Pushing my way into the darkness, I went down a hallway and stopped in a doorway. I didn't know it at the time, but I was standing at the top of a stairwell.

Unfortunately, I had run out of hoseline, as hard as I tried and and much as I wanted to, I couldn't go any farther. Some genius, who will remain nameless, decided I wasn't moving fast enough for him, so he stepped in front of me. Keep in mind, everyone is taught to never get between the nozzle and the fire.

As if on cue, someone broke out the window to the fire room. With a new rush of oxygen, the fire "rolled-over" everything in the small room, the kitchen area, and up the stairs towards us. I remember the temperature suddenly skyrocketing, and seeing the fire swirling up the stairs at me in slow-motion, hearing the guys yelling to "open the nozzle!", but waiting on dumbass to get out of the way. By the time he was out of the way and I opened the nozzle, the fire had rolled over to the point of completely engulfing me.

Some things blurred together and other things I don't remember. At some point, another hoseline was brought in through a different door and advanced to the fire room. They were able to pull a few more feet of line for me and I ended up sitting at the bottom of the stairwell for a little while. The fire rolled-over again and I was able to stop it from going up the stairs.

I do remember 2 of the guys from our "god squad" literally crawling over me to get out. And those guys wear 2 nomex hoods to try and beat the heat.   **It's been said that the more heat you take, you eventually start to build up a resistance to it. It's also a well-known fact, that the nozzleman usually takes the most heat and deflects a lot of heat from the other guys.**    I was told after the fire by a few old-timer's that it was "hotter than hell in there" and that they were kinda surprised I took so much heat.

Eventually, my seatman told me to drop the nozzle where it was at and back out for a few minutes. We went outside and dumped our air packs and coats for a few minutes. The guy from air & light brought us each a cup of gatoraid and took our spent bottles to swap for a couple fresh ones.

A few short minutes later, we put our gear back on, grabbed our tools, and went back inside to help overhaul. We did minimal overhaul until the arson investigator had a chance to look around. After getting his go-ahead, we soaked everything down and did a little poking around to make sure the fire was out.

We again retreated outside and helped roll and put away some hose. We helped the homeowners get a few critical belongings out of the house and then went in service.

If I ever manage to hunt down pictures, I'll post them. Since most of the fire was inside the house and not visible from the street, there wasn't much news media there.

Take care