They said that World War One Ace Billy Bishop had "The Courage of the Early Morning" as he would get out of bed and fly some of his most heroic missions in the moments before dawn. There is something about getting out of a nice warm bed and facing the bracing cold while your body is still half asleep. It's hard enough to function let alone make life and death decisions. Sometimes mere mortals are called upon to rise above their physical challenges and face the thing that confronts us all at those moments, fear.
Fear is not a bad thing, it as natural and as necessary as our other senses, taste, hearing, touch, sight smell. They were all developed to protect us. Smell keeps us from eating rotten flesh or vegetables. Sight warns us of hazards such as predators or physical dangers. Taste can warn us of toxic items, especially if we have not tried something before. Hearing warns us of the approach of danger. Touch can warn us of hot or cold and keep us safe from freezing or burning ourselves. Fear keeps us safe when we have entered a situation that is not safe. It is as necessary as any other sense.
I am a Fire Fighter, Deputy Chief of the local Volunteer Fire Department. I have been a Fire Fighter for about 14 years and I have been Deputy Chief for about seven years in two different communities. I first started as a way to serve my community which was non-political. I was looking for a way to help others that was as noncontroversial as possible. Let's face it everyone likes Fire Fighters. Everyone loves a cop when the bad guy is at the door but are not so happy about him when they see the flashing lights in the rear view mirror. I have enjoyed being a Fire Fighter and have taken on more responsibility over the years. I have seen a fair number of fires in those years, trash fires, house fires, trailer fires, kitchen fires, car fires. I've seen a Fire Hall burn to the ground with all of our gear in it. What a helpless feeling! Standing there burned from fingertips to elbows because I tried to get the burning truck out of a burning hall. I have seen the enemy, the enemy isn't fear, fear is a friend, the enemy is terror.
I've met my old friend fear as recently as this past Tuesday. It was just after 5 a.m. when I was roused from my warm bed into a minus ten night, inky black. Half asleep I heard the wail of an alarm. I thought it was the store's burglar alarm so I ran to the front door, as soon as I unlocked it I knew it wasn't. The school! The alarm at the school sounds the same as our burglar alarm, as I wheeled around I saw Fire Chief Urban Antoine pull into the Fire Hall parking lot, I ran for the truck and pulled in behind him, he went for the door, I went for my gear. "The School!" he said tersely. His voice showed the nervous edge we both felt. The worst moments are these first few, when we know nothing. When the enemy is a swirling mass of activity in your mind. When your brain lacks info it fills in the blanks. Snapshots of the worst things you've seen at a Fire scene flash through your brain like images caught in the flash of a camera. Your brain hates a void so it fills in the gap with the worst images it can find like it wants to prepare you for whatever lays ahead. Adrenalin is coursing through your veins, time is blur seconds are minutes, minutes an eternity. You don't know how you get your gear on and get the truck rolling it is all just habit, practice, routine takes over. That's why you drill so the unconscious brain takes over. I hit the siren as we drive the short block to the school, it's just Urban and I in the truck, but two more members are pulling in as we pull out soon they will gear up and join us.
As we round the corner of the School I get my first view of the beast, the fiery dragon that awaits our watery lances. He is rearing his head above the roof of a porch on the back end of the school. This part was added later. "Exterior fire." The Fire Officer part of my brain tells me. "probably arson". Outside walls seldom catch fire at ten below. The flashing pictures vanish from my mind. Immediately replaced by practical concerns, where to position the apparatus (truck to civilians). I swing from the cab, another Fire Fighter in street clothes approaches. "Deploy both cross lays!" I shout and we simultaneously grab the two nozzles of the 11/2 inch hoses that lie in beds under the pump bridge. "Get the belly out of those lines!" I call as I sprint over the uneven ground, rutted and slippery with the usual objects laying around. As we get the lines tight I call To Urban "charge Red and Orange!" all our lines are color coded. Urban has followed SOP (standard operating procedure) he has put the truck into neutral and engaged the pump, put the truck in gear and swung from the cab to the pump bridge, an enclosed cab where the pump operator can see better and is protected from the elements. I know he is opening valves and raising the RPMs so he can charge our lines. The beast is roaring and snarling smoke is wafting over us in waves, chocking blinding black waves that take my breath away and fill my eyes with water that freezes as it runs to my eyelashes and cheeks. I pull down my visor and curse the flames under my breath which comes out in white clouds, fogging my visor and making me further blind. I don't care I crack the valve and bleed the air from my line, it fills comfortingly I feel it get tight on my hip as I use my body to drag the hose where normally a second firefighter would help me scale the stairs to the porch. I hit the fire with a stream of water and the pressure builds. Waves of smoke, ash and live embers swirls around me as I press forward. I stab the beast in it's fiery belly with the watery lance. my feet slide on the half melted snow as I wrestle the hose which naturally wants to sway around under the pressure. I move ahead and move my lance to work the beast from head to foot. Now two more members are on scene, Roy and James take line two and work toward the bottom of the fire.Up here on the permafrost buildings are built on pilings and are therefore off the ground. The school is skirted with wire, Roy and Jame s strip the wire back and duck under the school, the fire is in the space between the floor and the bottom of the building, "Damn" I think this is going to be an ugly grunt fire. Many hours of work were ahead. I was suddenly mad and then just as suddenly ashamed of my anger. This could have happened when the school was full we had no victims and I mentally thanked God for that. We knocked down the exterior fire but it was soon obvious that this was not enough, the fire was pumping smoke out the ridge line of the roof. The Fire was in the ceiling and cock loft. It was in the sub floor and the siding. We have to ventilate, we normally would go in the door. The door was too solid locked from the inside with far too much flame to let us pass. "We need the ladders!" I yell, Urban nods, he knows it. With the help of some bystanders wakened by our air raid siren alarm, help me lower the heavy ladders and Carry the extension ladder to the wall. I raise the ladder and climb to the roof. It is icy and steep, I climb to the ridge line. It is spongy where the heat has hit the roof trusses, I know they are weak. I scramble to the roof edge where Urban waits. "Your call!" I shout. "Too risky." he says quietly. I couldn't agree more. "I am going to try to ventilate from the inside." i say as we make our way to the ground.
I grab my air pack and make my way to the front door. I am joined by Terry Kunkle. "Turk" as we call him. He opens the front doors as I fumble with my mask. I start into the vestibule which is eerily dark, the emergency lights having failed. My helmet light probes the blackness, as dark as the far side of the moon. I get to the interior doors and open them. I am driven back by waves of heat and smoke. My helmet light is not enough so I turn on a powerful flashlight in my tunic pocket. "Better." I think as proceed through the interior door. This is against every rule in the book and I know it. I shouldn't be in here alone. I shouldn't be in here without a hose or at least a rope. I inch my way forward down a hall where children race with abandon everyday. To me it is Terra Incognita, suddenly it is as if I have never been here before, the darkness and the heat and smoke have transformed this into a whole new world. It is as if I am underwater. I am enveloped not so much with wood smoke as with poison gas. What waits for me on the other side of the Plexiglas shield is a combination of noxious gasses. Carbon Monoxide, odorless colorless is waiting for a gap in my armour, looking to seep in and steal my consciousness, to turn rational thought into cold terror that will take away my breath. Sodium Cyanide from burning plastics swirls about my face. They wait for me to make a wrong turn in the blackness. To run out of air, for my light to fail. For me to trip over a ripple in the carpet and go sprawling. The heat hunts for every gap in my protective clothing. My ears are burning in the heat and I curse myself for not putting on the balaclava in my tunic pocket. Too late now. I press ahead, door after door is locked. In the vacant school the alarm still blares, rising and falling, adding a weird fun house soundtrack to this surreal other worldly place. Reason takes over once again, I remember that there is no one to rescue here, just a door to open. I am accomplishing nothing. I advance a few more yards but I know round ones is going to the beast. I use fear and make the call, I would never ask my men to do this, I start to work my way out. Soon my helmet light catches a familiar wall and I work my way toward the cooler air. My face is a sheet of sweat and I close the valve and take a huge gulp of cool air at the front door. I slip the mask from my face so I can be heard "I need a fan and a generator!" "You got it!" Turk replies and disappears. I turn the corner of the building and meet Rot MacCauley who is now freed up to join me. Pastor Lynn Beurger approaches and asks if we need his generator. I thank him and tell him yes. Roy and I will try again to reach the back doors and ventilate the building. He has a fresh tank of air. I check my gauge and am dismayed to see that there is less than half a tank remaining. I make the call, we go in. Turk is here with the fan as we again go back in. I wonder, what is happening on the other side of the fire!
Round two doesn't go much better than round one, the beast wins again. The smoke and poisonous gas is too thick and the heat is too intense. Too many locked doors not enough light. As we enter I shout into my face piece and grab Roy by the arm "We go in together! If we get separated, STOP! Get hold of me and we go on together1" He nods and we start in. I have him by the coat and we sweep down the hallway to the principals office. It never seemed so far before. Like a mile from the doors which we can't see a few feet away from them. The hallway makes a turn around a pillar by the office and doors go in all directions. My enemy rears it's head. Did I just make a wrong turn. Have I lead us both into a dead end? No hose to follow out, no rope. No radio to call for back up. No Backup would get here in time anyway. I am returned to reality by the blare of my whistle that signals a warning of low air. I have five minutes to get out. I tug Roy's sleeve, he has heard my alarm and knows what it means we turn and I push my terror aside and find a landmark that tells me where we are going. Soon we are in cooler air. The generator is here and Lynn and teacher George Iliopolis set it up. We get the fan going and a plume of deadly smoke starts to billow from the front door. I return to the fire truck and change air bottles. The guys have knocked down the fire around the door so I give water truck driver Bobby McPherson a hand and with a pike pole we manage to tear down the doors and put out the fire in the vestibule. We place a second generator and fan at this end and exhaust the smoke here too. We then send a team onto the roof and start ventilating.
With the worst of the smoke gone it is time for Urban and I to go in again. we proceed down the hallway, Turk has restored lights in the main hall, we still have no lights in any other hallways. The main hall is free of black smoke but is full of choking poison gas. We don our masks and make our way toward the fire scene from the inside. It is dark in the side halls and my helmet light is done. We use hand lanterns and make our way into the bowels of the building. It is still very hot. We encounter locked doors. I look at Urban, he makes a kicking motion so I kick the door in and we move a bit closer to the back end of the fire. we are careful to brace open doors so we do not cut ourselves off from a safe escape route. We get to the teachers lounge but cannot get into the classroom from this side as the floor starts to sag under our feet. we back out of the room and try another way. Another kicked in door and we are in the back of the room. It is ice cold here due to the gaping hole in the wall allowing outside air in. We stare at the destruction, the clock has stopped at 06:30 TV sets are melted blobs of plastic, paint hangs from the walls in sheets. We move the desks into one corner and start pulling down the ceiling. As we open the ceiling sheets of ash and sparks fall on our masks and our jackets. We take the hose handed to us through the wall and spray down the hot spots. We pushed through the hallway and opened the back doors. We had chased the beast from the building. There was still hours of work, pulling down ceilings, removing debris and picking up gear. We returned to the truck and sat on the running boards. Pastor Lynn shows up with coffee and sandwiches. the coffee smells delicious and we fall on it like starving children. My eyes scan the crowd. I spot Lina, my wife standing there at the corner of the building her long hair shining in the early morning sun. She is holding a large paper coffee cup. I go to her, she hands me the hot delicious coffee and I think that nothing has ever tasted so good. I am filthy but I give her a hug anyway. I look back at the blackened doorway. The damage is considerable, but it could have been much worse. We did good, I think to myself. Lina heads off to work and I return to the guys. We eat hot egg sandwiches and survey the scene. I tell them how proud I am of the job they have done. We saved the school. It is a good feeling. The sun is rising over the school and we are all safe. WE finish the sandwiches, sip the last of the coffee and get back to the job at hand. There are things to do and we have to return to the hall and replace the hoses and fill the air bottles. It is noon before we first leave the scene and we have already put in nearly a full days work. We are tired but proud. For Urban and I there remains the investigation, our day will go one for a few more hours, but for now we look forward to one thing, a hot shower. We take of our soaked and frozen bunker gear. We laugh as we realize we are both still in pajamas, my bare feet blistered by the steel toed boots. It will be at least twelve hours before we will again slide beneath a warm comforter and hope that this night we will not have to face the beast again...
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