1) It was the beginning of summer and I had just finished my first year of military school. Several days after coming back, I responded to a fire call. It was a brush fire and there was a good turn out. At the fire call, one of the guys said that there was now a woman in the fire department and he asked if I had seen her.
Nope.
A couple of days later, it was midnight on a Saturday. I responded to a fire call and was first into the station. I unlocked the door, went in and called police dispatch. The dispatcher gave me the address, then advised me that it was a dumpster fire.
I went over to unit 4. The truck was only four years old and only had a 150 gallon water tank. As soon as I started it, she jumped in and we gave each other a "Who are you" look. As we now had two firefighters, which department policy required to roll a truck.
Five minutes later we were behind a shopping center. Because I was driving I had to set the pump gear, then work the pump panel on the left side of the truck. She pulled a booster reel hose and went to work on the fire. A police officer rolled up and told me that he spotted the fire, but didn't see anyone in the area.
Once the fire was out we returned to the station. She refilled the water tank and I did the paperwork.
Several days later, another brush fire and another good turn out. The same guy that told me about the female firefighter asked if I had seen her yet. "Yeah, we rolled on a dumpster fire behind the Thrifty Store."
"So, how did she do?" he asked, his face filled with anticipation.
"She did a good job."
He looked at me as if I said that Martians ran the White House.
Saturday at noon, I responded to another fire call. I was first into the station. After getting the address I started Unit 3. Unit 3 was twenty years old and had a 750 gallon water tank (we were rolling on a house fire). The female firefighter jumped in on the passenger seat and we rolled. A block from the fire I stopped next to a fire hydrant and told her to pull a hose from the bed.
I rolled up to the house. I extended the hose she pulled from the bed and connected it to the pump panel. I then ran out to the street and motioned to her. She opened the hydrant and ran towards me. I pulled a booster reel hose. There was a lot of smoke from the eaves. I laid the hose on the ground, took a pike from the truck and started poking at the eaves. The female firefighter made it to the truck and also pulled a booster reel hose. After a few minutes we had gelled into a team, working together on this persistent and difficult fire. After ten minutes I got a weird feeling. I turned around and saw that ten of the firefighters were standing in the street watching us work. I put down the pike and walked over.
"You guys going to help?" I asked.
One of them replied with a smile: "No, we're enjoying watching you work."
The group laughed. I shook my head and returned to work on the fire. It took another half hour to get the fire out. As we wrapped up, one of the guys in the street was kind enough to help with the hose we had running from the hydrant.
Back at the station, once again I tended to the paperwork while my partner tended to the truck. One of the guys in the group walked in and asked if he could sign the supplemental report so he could get paid.
"No" I told him, "You didn't help, you don't get paid."
He shrugged his shoulders and walked out. A minute later another firefighter walked in. When I told him no, he got ugly and threatened to kick my ass. I wasn't going to fight him over four dollars so I let him sign.
In my nine years in the department I had never seen this side of these usually selfless and dedicated men.
2) That mournful and scary wail woke me from my bed at eleven oh one. As I dressed in the darkness I wondered how my brother and mother slept through that scary air raid siren in the town's water tower. I knew it could be heard for five miles in every direction. A minute later I was on my bike and pedaling towards the fire station.
As I arrived at the fire station firefighters were arriving. The sound of car and pickup doors slamming penetrated the darkness as well as the grating noise of the bay doors opening to let the massive trucks out. I placed my bike in the front office then dashed over to the rear wheel well of unit three, where my turnout gear was stored. I grabbed my gear and climbed into one of the rear facing jumper seats behind the cab. A minute later we rolled out of the station.
The fire was in a car repair garage on Jarales road. Jarales road was on the east side of town and very rural. Prior to 1900, Jarales road was the main street for the town, but when the railroad built a passenger train depot on the west side of the train yard the modern town was built west of the train yard.
The garage was in a yard behind a six foor cyclone fence topped with a triple crown of barbed wire. The gate was secured with a thick chain and a big lock. The trucks we rolled were a 1958 and 1948 completely lacking the cutting and specialty tools that come on modern fire trucks. However, one of the benefits of a volunteer fire department is that a caravan of personally owned vehicles (driven by firefighters) follow the fire trucks. One of the firefighters had a large crowbar in his pickup. Several firefighters worked the crowbar and chain until the chain popped. Problem one solved.
Problem two was that the garage was a cinder block building with a steel gate. There was windows in the garage, but the frames were also made of iron. We would have to fight the fire through the windows and this was difficult, at best.
Problem three was water supply. River road was a main thoroughfare that intersected with Jarales road, but that was more than a mile away and it was the location of the nearest hydrant. Six of us loaded the hoses from unit three onto unit two. Once that was done, three firefighters laid the hose all the way from the garage to the hydrant.
Problem four was locating the owner of the garage. The cop and dispatcher on duty had to do some detective work to track him down so he could open that gate so we could finally enter the garage and tap the fire out. The owner finally showed up at five AM.
We got back to the station at six. There was a tremendous amount of clean up that had to be done. At seven, the majority of the firefighters left to go to their day jobs, leaving me and Anthony to finish up. Anthony was a high school senior and the son of the senior assistant fire chief.
At 8:30 we finally finished up and were leaving the station when the klaxon sounded, signaling an incoming call, which Anthony took. When he hung up, he said "It's your school."
We rolled unit three. As we entered the school grounds through the eat gate we could see that the fire was a 55 gallon barrel that had pieces of lumber and branches from a recent project at the school. I also saw that the building had been evacuated with students filling the school yard. As we stopped I jumped out and pulled a booster reel hose.
It only took a minute to tap out the fire. As I helped Anthony rewind the hose back onto the reel the principal approached me and asked "Now that you're here, are you staying?"
"No," I told him, "I've been up all night. I'm going home for a bath and a nap."
He looked at me with shock and dismay.
At 11:30 as I entered the school I had to pass the main office. The principal called me into his office and he directed me to sit.
"By whose permission do you miss school for fire calls?" he asked.
"The fire chief" I answered, "call him at work. His number is 4-7802."
He made the call, looking at me with suspicion. I could hear both sides of the call. The principal opened the call, explaining who he was and the purpose of the call.
"He just made it to school?" the chief asked.
"We had a fire at eight thirty. He said he going to go home for a bath and a nap."
"We had a fire overnight. Are you familiar with Al's Garage on Jarales Road?"
"Yes."
"We were out all night on that fire."
"I see."
"He's a good kid. He makes ninety percent of our calls and works hard. He's an example of a good citizen, don't you agree?"
"Yes."
"You think you can give him a break?"
"Yes, I will."
"Thank you. I've got to get back to work."
"Bye."
"Bye."
The principal hung up and looked at me.
"I can't control what you do with your off time, but once you're at school, you don't leave for fire calls."
"Okay."
"You can go to class now."