Safe Again

At 5:33 a.m. this morning, there were several flashes of lightning that lit up the house, turning dark ever so briefly into daylight. Accompanying the light show that was over and around us was the roaring clap of thunder...a sound so loud and so close that it literally awoke me from a dead sleep and rattled the very walls of the house where we live.

Moments later the pager goes off. What is it this time? A wreck? A downed tree? I fumble for the pager and push the button to discover that the light show that we had just participated in had left its mark on a house just up the road. Dressed and out the door, I make the short half mile drive to our station #1 and suit up.

Our station and the engine that I am on are the first on the scene. We do our initial check, check in with the now established incident command, and begin to lay out our lines. There is fire coming from a second story bedroom venting out through the roof and there is fire on the back end of the car at that same corner of the house. Some quick water on the exterior fires and it is off into the house with the fire chief to locate the source of the fire. There is movement of furniture, tearing of ceiling and walls, running of additional lines and relief workers coming in.

I take my relief and exit the structure and man the secondary line on the ground under the fire. The fire again vents at the roof and we hose it down. Just as this latest outburst in the house is dowsed, the car begins to burn again. This time, fire is coming from the gas tank area of the vehicle. I hose down the fire, two other fire fighters break out a window and open the trunk and we are able to extinguish the remaining fire without further incident or explosion.

At the end of almost 3 hours, 1 vehicle is lost and 1 room is decimated. The residents of the house - a man, his wife, and their dog - are safe. All fire fighters are safe. Some may call that fortune. Some may call that luck. Some may even be tempted to call that fate. This preacher/firefighter, however, after praying on the front lines and at the end of a hose, chooses to call that grace.