Burning Grace

There is a line in the movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry where the two fire fighters say to each other on the way into a burning building, "Going in alive and coming out the same." I love that line!

Today, after almost 3 weeks without a legitimate fire call (there were medical and other calls), our department got paged out to a structure fire. Being in a small town (322 people to be exact) and it being the middle of the work day during the week, there was only a captain and myself that originally responded to that structure fire.

The bunker gear was on, the sirens were blaring, and I was somewhere deep in my mind repeating that line...o.k. God, going in alive and coming out the same. It is a little culturally relevant prayer ritual that has become standard in my approaches to these very serious fires.

The captain and I were the first on the scene, but because there were only two of us we could not mount an interior attack on the fire. So we dropped a 1.5" line and began to protect the exposure of the house and fight the fire that had crept into the roof (a trash fire had burned a shed to the ground and had started the house on fire).

We had put 500 gallons of water on the fire when the hose began to drizzle and an engine arrived with another 500 gallons from another department. One truck got hooked up to the other and we continued pumping. When that truck was out, it went back to the station to get more water (in the mean time, the captain had been paging out for additional personnel and water). Well into our endeavors, other trucks and departments started showing up. I moved from the engine to a grass rig to get the fire under control in the surrounding wooded area, then returned to the engine that had been filled once again to put more water on the house and begin to eliminate the remaining hot spots.

Additional personnel showed up all through the second hour and they mounted an inside attack and a roof attack. Within the next 30 minutes the crews were doing overhaul and I was off the front lines after over 2 hours of fire fighting (except for a very brief earlier break where I had a bottle of water and tweeted---mainly to let my wife in California know that I was alright).

Maybe it is a bit naive on my part (or quirky, or idealistic), but today God's grace was a burning grace where we went in alive and came back the same!

This fire was more than 10 miles from our nearest station and there was no loss of life, no injury (fire fighter nor resident), and while the shed next to the house burned to the ground, more than 70% of the house was saved (the bedroom that caught first from the shed was toast---as was the roof above it, but save some smoke and water damage, the living, dining, kitchen, and master bed and bath areas were saved). Insurance may or may not agree with our success, but we chalk this one up as a win...and just for today, I am grateful for that burning grace!