Sometimes, You Just Know

by

Keith Crossler

find, these days, that after being in the fire service for as long as I have, you tend to have a gut instinct to whether a call will be an actual call or not. Seems funny to think about it that way, but it’s true. When my phone sounds the notification (it sounds like an old school hose cart bell) for a call, I will look to see what it is and whether it seems like a “real” call or not. To be clear, not that every call for help isn’t a “real” call, but “real” in the aspect of it being an actual fire. Just the other day there was an article in the local paper about there being more calls, year to date, then all of the previous year total calls that were responded to. Out of those calls, there is actually a fairly small percentage that are “real” fires. So, the point I’m trying to make, is sometimes you just know it’s a “real” fire. This particular day, it was close to lunch time. I was at work, completely swamped, but as my hose cart notification went off, I just stood up and knew it was time to go on the call. The call was close to my office. I couldn’t see the smoke, but I just had a feeling it was going to be a bigger call. I boogied down the road and pulled off the side of the road to park. It was big. One trailer home with heavy fire blowing out the back side. Our Fire Division Chief pulled up just as I finished pulling on my turnouts. Since we didn’t have an engine on scene yet, I asked if I could grab his air pack out of his truck. With the ok, I packed up and was ready when the engine got there. Myself, and a couple of other regulars who drove straight to the call, quickly accessed the severity of the fire. If we were quick, maybe we could stop it before it consumed the whole trailer. The engine arrived. We flaked out the first line and laid it out around to the back of the home. “Charge it!” I hollered out. Out came the water. We hit it hard and fast, quickly knocking out the fire and pushing the flames down. With a solid attack, we adjusted to the grass around the trailer that was starting to make the run. We had a brush truck on the way, but if we could do a splash out in the weeds before it really took off, then maybe it wouldn’t spread any further. And just as we started to pour the water back into the trailer, the hose went flat. Out of water. It was amazing how fast the tank from the engine went dry. There was a crew scrambling to hook up to the hydrant, but it just wasn’t quick enough. In their defense, we were flowing water fast. It goes quick when the engine is wound tight and the nozzle is wide open. We found out later that someone had actually driven over the large supply line before it was charged and popped one of the couplings loose. It turned out to waste a bunch of time getting the necessary water to the engine. By the way, don’t do that. Don’t ever drive over a hose. Ever. It was horrible. Sitting there and just waiting. Watching our quick work begin to flare up and burn just as big and hot as when we started. Still no water. Then it’s getting bigger. Now the entire trailer is fully involved in fire. It’s hot, too. We had to keep backing up because of the heat. Mind you it was also around 100 degrees out that day. At last, we get it back. The hose comes back to life and we go back to work. It took a little time, but we were able to knock the flames down and get the trailer under control. Now, it’s a total loss. The roof collapsed and we realized it would be an extensive overhaul to get it all the way out. As more crews had arrived, and our low air alarms were starting to sound, my crew reported to rehab to get checked out. We updated the incoming crew with what our assignment was and we started dropping our gear. Being hot like that, you’ve got to cool yourself down and rehydrate. As we sat in the shade getting our vitals checked, the Incident Command came over to us and gave us the next assignment. Go into the trailer next to this one and check it out. The fire had gotten so hot, we were worried it may have extended into that trailer too.

We geared back up and walked up to the door. I could hear the smoke detectors sounding. After checking the door for heat (it was cold), I forced the door open and found the smoke layer about half way down between the floor and the ceiling. Damn, that’s not a good sign. We masked up and started our search. Using one of our thermal imaging cameras, we looked up along the south wall where there was the most heat from the first trailer. The kitchen and living room were clear. Then, in the spare room, we found a hot spot. Using my axe, I opened up the wall and found fire coming back at me. We called for a hose. The fire wasn’t big at this point, especially because we found it before it broke out of the wall on its own. As the line was coming in, I continued to open up the wall and ceiling to expose the fire. We knocked it down and went to search out the rest of the home. The next room was the bathroom. It too had a hot spot in an upper corner of the wall and ceiling. As I started to open up that spot, my low air alarm started to sound. So, we swapped out again. The next crew came in and we had given them explicit instructions on what to do to get this one knocked out with minimal damage or loss. Again, we stripped our gear and started cooling down waiting for our vitals to be checked. As we sat there and talked about our progress and overall how things were going, I noticed that the amount of smoke coming from that trailer started to pick up. Then, it started to get darker and heavier. Our Incident Command comes over and tells us to gear back up, he needs some more experienced folks to get back in there. Just as I was about have my gear back on, the crew from inside bails out the front door and hollers out to us “there’s fire everywhere in there”. They were told to go back in and start working it back. Try to push it. Now that we were ready to go again, we went to the back door of the trailer and called for another line. I opened the door and could see the entire ceiling was rolling along with the bathroom and the back bedroom. Best we could figure, once I opened up the wall and ceiling spaces paired with the air movement from the door and windows being opened up, the fire took off. As the first crew was pushing the fire to the back of the trailer from the living room, I dove inside the back bedroom with a line and knocked the fire from there and the bathroom. I quickly spun around and hydraulically ventilated the back bedroom to make sure we got it all. It didn’t take very long with us flowing both lines to get it all the way out. But dang, it was horrible to lose that trailer too. I really thought we had it under control. It was just the right push of wind with the hiding fire to make it blow up fast. With that fire under control, all the crews rotated out and the overhaul began to get it all fully extinguished. Sometimes, you just know. Know it’s time to go and help out. Sometimes things turn out much different than you anticipate. Fire is more fluid than anyone could probably imagine. But, that’s part of the fun of being a firefighter. I wouldn’t have it any other way.