The New Recruits
By webdev-swl
Published On April 2, 2019
It seemed like an eternity before the Fire Attack Team One had reached the 8th floor but now here they were, heaving to catch their breath and gripping the railings to steady themselves. To sprint up eight flights of stairs with full fire fighting gear on was a task only for the fittest of the fit. Heavy protective clothing, boots, helmet and sixteen kilos of breathing apparatus on their backs conspired to weigh them down and exhaust them. The team had also brought with them all the equipment and break and enter tools that they thought they would need for the task ahead.
Their officer had ordered them to gain access to the 8th floor via the stairwell, fight the fire and rescue the trapped office worker. Sounded pretty simple and straightforward when they were being briefed on the ground floor but right now as they stood there in the stairwell, the fire waiting for them on the other side of the door, their hearts raced and not just because of the physical strain.
The fire had been burning for a while and had engulfed most of the large office area. It was alive and dancing as if enjoying and delighting in it’s destructive power, spreading in every direction, laying waste to everything in its path. And the heat, the enormous heat of the fire that radiated out in all directions soaked up and absorbed the energy of every object that came near it. The fire glowed red and orange, throbbing at its heart, crackling as if laughing, waiting for the young fire fighters to enter the room and suck the life out of them too.
A fire is defined as rapid chemical reaction producing heat, smoke and light in varying degrees. Flame needs three essential things to allow it to live, eat, move and to breathe. It needs fuel, oxygen and a heat source. Once it gets going it has its self-perpetuating heat source so now it hunts for fuel if it can breathe well enough in its environment. Fire will spread in all directions radiating its evil and consuming everything in its way. It does not discriminate but pounces on and wrings the life out of everything it possibly can to feed its insatiable hunger. The more it is fed the hungrier it becomes. A burning cancer. It is the consummate athlete and can jump effortlessly left or right. It can sprint with great speed or run long distances easily leaping over almost any obstacle. Like a cunning predator it can even surround and close in on its victims cutting off escape routes. But none of those are its greatest talents. By far its ability to spread upward with ruthless efficiency is its most awful trick. A fire is hottest at the top of the flame and the heat it produces causes the super heated gasses to rise in great convection currents. These currents of massive heat can leap upwards two or three or even ten floors on a building; take hold burning up and down trapping its prey. And fire fighters.
It was into this hell that the young fire fighters in the fire-isolated stairwell found themselves. The two new recruits were fearful and excited at what lay in wait for them on the other side of the door. This is what they had trained for. All those hard months of dedicated study, commitment and effort had now come down to this. A moment in time where all the lessons learned over the past four months in training were condensed into the here and now.
With that final thought the two fire fighters looked at each other, nodded and their gloved hands pulled down the red-hot door handle.
The door flew back towards them under the thermal pressure the fire had generated inside and they
both rocked back from the force. It made them gasp for breath in their facemasks. The scene that greeted them was like one from hell. The roaring and screaming of the fire was deafening, a horrible and deadly noise as if it were welcoming the fire fighters to engage and challenge it, goading them into battle. It had gripped the contents of the room strangling the life out of them, turning them to ash before moving on to its next fuel source.
The fire fighters knew the office worker they had come to save was trapped in an office on the far right of the room and away from the main body of the fire so he was still alive but they would have to move fast. By now he would be starving of oxygen and the fire would reach him before long. Keeping low, they moved into the room to confront the monster they’d come to fight and opened the nozzle on their hose to a fog pattern. As the water hit the fire it screamed in protest, swirling around and away from the fire fighters, its fingers of death reaching left and right in an attempt to cut them off. The roar was deafening as the two brave fire fighters advanced towards their goal. This was to be a fast and frantic ‘snatch and grab’ rescue with their priority being to save the office worker’s life. The fire fighters moved fast pushing the fire back, stumbling over the obstacles on the floor, blinded by the intense, thick and toxic smoke.
The radiated heat from the fire was taking a toll on the Attack Team despite their fitness. It was sapping the life out of them and they knew they needed to move fast, faster than they were now as time was running out for them all – fire fighter and victim alike. The team made their way to where they knew the office worker would be. There they made a final stand against the roaring, monstrous beast they had come to fight. Squatting down on one knee, they gave the fire everything they had by varying the water pattern on the nozzle from fog to jet, hitting the heart of the fire, trying to wound it and get it to retreat just long enough to get the victim and themselves out and into fresh air.
They tried the door on the office but it was jammed shut. The Attack Team knew what to do and wasted no time in wielding the huge sledgehammer, smashing the handle and sending the door flying open. The two members of Attack Team One burst into the office and could see a crumpled form on the ground, unconscious and not moving. This was their target, their mission objective – to rescue this person and get him to safety. Their hearts now beat faster. They looked at each other. If they were exhausted now then fighting their way back past the raging fire, back to the fire isolated stair with this man over their shoulders would really test their collective strength, determination and will.
It was now or never. With the help of his partner, the second member of the Attack Team heaved, strained and wrestled the dead weight of the victim onto his shoulders. It would be up to his partner to lead the way and fight their way out to the exit and to the stairwell, which would deliver them back to the ground floor and ultimate safety. With a nod of their heads they went back into the inferno and into hell. The lead member blasted the fire that by this time had re-intensified and was coming at them with a vengeance. It was attempting to cut off their retreat and had taken hold of the room radiating its killing heat more brutally than before. The team was moving fast now, stumbling, almost falling but focussing on the exit, praying for a lucky break, hoping that the water in the hose would hold the beast back just long enough to get to safety.
And then there they were – the door to freedom! With an almighty shove, Attack Team One and their rescued victim spilled through the exit door and onto the landing in the fire isolated stairwell. The leader slammed the door shut just as the fire made one last attempt to reach through the opening in an effort to snatch the life out of all three of them. Gulping for precious air, lungs bursting and leg muscles screaming, Attack Team One did not stop. They moved down the stairs sharing the heavy weight of the rescued man. After a few minutes, they reached the ground floor and burst through the final exit door into the waiting arms of the rest of the fire teams on the street. Safe now and completely exhausted both mentally and physically; they collapsed in the rest area and took their breathing apparatus, heavy fire fighting gear and helmets off.
The first member of Attack Team one looked at his partner. She’d done a great job and had proved herself in the heat of battle. This incident had tested them both to their very limits and they had met the challenge. They both looked at each other and in that moment knew that the job satisfaction they now felt was never there in any of the careers they’d had before this.
The Fire Officer walked up to them both. ‘Get your gear on, you’re going back in.’
Nick Bell was a Watch Commander in the NT Fire & Rescue Service and has responded to countless critical / emergency incidents in his time. Based in SE Qld, he is now working as a Risk, Crisis & Emergency, Critical Incident consultant & trainer and educator to the business world and advises on preparation and planning for all manner of Crisis and Emergency events. Nick also writes stories & articles for various magazines, journals and newspapers.
Email – sdca1@bigpond.com
Phone – 0421 555 345
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