You Never Forget Your First Fire

Cheers

Great layout about that experience. Thanks for sharing it, and thanks for your service to the public.

March 27, 2009

Wow - powerful journaling, excellent lo. Raquel

March 26, 2009

You Never Forget Your First Fire

Fire - My First Structure Fire...I still have to make the title at the bottom but I need to but more sponge to make the letters with...The title here is digital for now**

txt: MD City. 14. May 2008, 0432 a.m. We were all sleeping in the lounge when the tomes dropped. Fire-alarm put the call out for an AFA- 5th floor of the apt building. I jumped up, slipped outa my pro-boots & into my bunker pants, threw on my turn-out coat & climbed into the Engine. The 5 of us pulled out of the bay within our 60 seconds like normal. 70% of AFAs are malfunctions but I was still in that mind set of, “this could be the real-deal”. E271 AOL w/ a 5 sty multi-fam dwelling, fire showing from division 5. Out PO got to work, Lt established cmnd, Shepard grabbed the axe & halogen, Nello pulled the line and I was with him. Tw10 completed a primary for us. One of the guys I work w/ (Potter) was on the Tw that day- he brushed against me as he helped his partner pull the victim out. Male fell asleep while smoking- the mattress set the whole apt off (he was asleep in the middle of it all). There is no smell worse than that of burnt flesh, there just isn't. Shepard got the shit out of our way w/ his axe and we kept goin. I was on back-up until Nello decided to pass the line so I could get more nozzle exp. He shut the line down- I yelled at him, “What are you doin?!” cause the whole room was off! He handed me the nozzle and pointed at me then at the job. So I went to town  you train for months on end and you get exp with fire outside: dumpsters, car, brush…but there is no beast quite like a working dwelling fire! You get in there and you can either handle it or you can't. My adrenaline was so high I didn't even notice my ears were burnt. Shepard helped me in rehab when we got out. Those guys believed in me when they barely knew me (it was a week after I transferred to that station). They put their lives in my hands and we all made it out alive & on top. They have been my family ever since. They are both on my duty crew and I don't know how I would've gotten this far without them!