Like most weekends, our firehouse was filled with volunteers from Friday evening through Sunday morning. By 6:00pm Friday, the chalkboard in the radio room would have names scribbled on it with riding positions next to them. It was like a reservation list for the bunk room. When the list was filled, nobody else could spend the night.
It became a habit for me and Rick to sleep in each weekend. We both lived pretty far from the station and usually wouldn’t make a truck if we responded from home. Months went by with Rick and I spending the weekends there, which meant we did everything together while we were there. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together. We would go to the mall, watch TV and go to movies together. Most importantly, we would fight fires together.
Rick and I were always the first to sign up for the air pack seats on the first out engine. This would mean it would be us pulling off the first hose line and making the initial attack on any fire we responded to. We got to know each other’s moves, expectations, and abilities and limitations. The bond that was formed is one not easily broken, and it would last for me many years after our volunteer fire service careers.
As luck would have it, just after we all lay in our squeaky bunks, and the room would be dimly lit with only the voice of the fire dispatcher echoing from the room next door, we could almost predict a fire call, especially if we were all to get up for training early the next morning.
Usually it would happen as I had just rolled over and thought about the next day’s agenda. I would have to get up early, and drive all the way to Dover Delaware to attend the Delaware State Fire Academy. It would be one of many trips I would take to the academy to become certified in various courses. Sometimes Rick would attend with me, other times I would find myself in the back seat with three other firefighters all getting some training in over the weekend.
Our dispatch involved a two-tone alert followed by the dispatcher’s voice advising what company was due, what the address was and then the type of emergency, whether it be house fire, brush fire, car fire, vehicle accident, etc. Those of us who had been doing this for a while learned the tones for each firehouse, and would end up guessing what company was being dispatched just by the tones going out. Sometimes we would be right, other times we might be one or two numbers off. As the tones got higher, so did the number. Station 32 had lower tones than Station 59. After a while, we could tell by the first of the two tones if it might be us. In fact, usually my heart would become used to getting a jolt of adrenaline just after our tones went off, so even if I wasn’t paying attention, if our tones went off, my heart would jump.
As I lay staring into the darkness on my creaky bunk, I could hear the speaker from the next room. Sure enough, I recognized the first tone… then all hell broke loose. The second tone hit, beepers went off, lights blinked on and speakers blared. Of course all at once, all of our bunks squeaked to life as we all jumped up and headed for the apparatus bays. I was on auto pilot as I walked from the bunk room, through the TV room and stepped into the bays where our gear hung behind the apparatus. Rick was nearby pulling his bunkers on as I pulled mine from the rack. With just a glance at each other we both headed for the pumper, Rick walking up the passenger side as I walked up the driver’s side to the jump seats just behind the cab. I stepped up into the seat and stood buttoning my coat looking over at Rick doing the same on the opposite side. Behind us on the back step were two more guys, including Rick’s older brother Greg. Up front the Assistant Chief hopped into the driver seat since we didn’t have any other driver for the first-out engine, a position he really didn’t favor over riding the officer seat. Unfortunately for me, he would do anything he could to get out of driving.
“Is Pat here!” I heard a voice yelling over the noise of the bay door raising.
“Right here!” I yelled to nobody in particular as I fastened the last of the buttons.
The assistant opened the driver’s door and as he leapt out of the can he yelled back to the crew…
“Engine Two! Everybody switch over, taking engine two! Pat you drive!”
Part of me was let down, I was all geared for packing up and being on the attack line with Rick, again. But part of me also became anxiously excited, because I was driving! I had to switch gears from moving in auto pilot to actually thinking.
How do I start the truck, how do I shift the truck, how do I get to the scene, what was the fastest route, how do I position the truck, how do I pump the truck….????
I quickly unbuttoned my bulky coat and tossed it and my helmet back to the jump seat of Engine Two, where Greg had moved up to take my place as Rick’s partner. He would hold on to the bulky gear while I drove, and when we arrived I would have to put it back on. With a loud roar, I brought the engine to life, hit all the switches that bathed the firehouse walls in glowing red, and in seconds we emerged from the warm firehouse and pierced the cold night air.
I maneuvered the apparatus through the back streets, shifting as I climbed hills and rounded bends. With an old truck like this, the driver was tired by the time they arrived due to the double clutching and manual steering. It was always a joke throughout the station, that driving this engine was really driving an engine! The new apparatus with automatic transmissions and power steering provided little challenge to the driver. In the old days, the driver could work up a sweat just getting the crew to the scene.
I was almost relieved when I finally caught a glimpse of the street sign as the red lights flashed upon it and we turned on to the street we were looking for. I was proud of my performance to this point as well. I never missed a gear, didn’t stall the truck, kept it running at a good clip the entire way.
“Pull up just short of the fire and we’ll stretch a line from there…” the Assistant Chief finally spoke and it almost startled me. I was in a zone. The level of concentration to keep this truck moving up and down the hills was mentally tiring.
I stopped the apparatus, engaged the brake, put the truck into pump gear, and finally hopped out of the cab. As I walked down the side of the truck to get the wheel chock, my crew had already disembarked and was pulling their hose off the bed, almost ready for me to supply them the water for the attack.
“Charge the line as soon as you can!” somebody yelled back at me standing at the pump panel.
I stared up at the gauges and levers and buttons, trying my best to wake up and remember how I was taught to pump this truck. In my head I reviewed the procedure…
“Pump gear, open tank to pump, open discharge, throttle up, discharge pressure…”
I looked at the flat hose lying in the leaves next to the truck, and finally it began to fill and grow with water. Water I was pumping into it. The sound of the nozzle coughing open with water was a delightful, relieving sound to my ears. It really wasn’t until this point that I noticed the fire we were racing too was just a pile of leaves that were gathered against a huge tree. The flames had already consumed most of the leaf pile and were now racing up the center of this old hollow tree trunk. As I watched Rick and Greg wrestle the hose into position and flow water into the towering tree, I decided I could now take a minute and throw my coat and helmet on. I hopped up into the jump seat where Greg had ridden, but I didn’t see my coat. I walked around to the other side checking the seat Rick rode in, but again, no coat or helmet.
“Hey, where ya hiding my stuff?” I yelled up the line to Greg still backing Rick up on the hose line.
“Oh, we lost it back on Glen Riddle Road on that last bend!” Greg said as he adjusted his grip on the heavy hose.
I smiled, shook my head and returned to the pump panel.
Within the hour, I was out of water, the flames had subsided, maybe not out, but they weren’t going anywhere, and our hose was picked up and packed back on the truck. On the way back I slowed down to a crawl as we rounded the bends on Glen Riddle Road, hoping to recover my fallen gear. Unfortunately, nobody on my crew spotted the coat or helmet, so I returned to the station with only the bunker pants I was wearing.
While standing amongst the gear racks, Greg explained he was buttoning his collar when I rounded the last turn quickly and he wasn’t able to catch my coat sliding off the diamond plate. Again, I just shook my head, and thought how I would be getting a new coat and helmet once the officers came to the station in the morning.
After a few more post-fire discussions, the crew once again fell silent into our squeaky bunks. I quietly hoped we wouldn’t have any more fires until I got my own coat, or maybe we would have a rescue call where I would drive again, not requiring the full gear.
The pagers remained quiet for the rest of the morning and we all slept in a little late due to the early fire call. When I finally stirred, I could hear voices in the next room, and the light was shining in the bunk room from above the partition separating the bunk room from the pool room. I soon realized I was one of the last guys out of the bunk room so I decided to wander out into civilization. Unfortunately for me, the Fire Chief had arrived, and was not too happy about the lost gear from the overnight call.
“So what are you doing about the gear from last night?” he said as I walked into the radio room.
“We checked the area on the way back, I can go check again now that the sun is up I guess…” I replied nonchalantly.
“How did this happen?” the Chief asked almost angrily.
“Greg was holding it so I could drive, we rounded a bend and it slid off the truck before he could catch it…”
“So did you handle it with Greg?”
“Handle what? It was an accident…” I couldn’t believe he was actually mad like someone needed to be disciplined over this.
“Lieutenant, just because Greg is your friend doesn’t mean you don’t discipline him..”
“For what? What did he do exactly?” I didn’t even let him finish and I walked away as I saw Greg standing behind the apparatus.
“Greg, I am telling you now, next time you let gear slide off the truck by accident you will be in trouble…” I shook my finger at Greg and was loud enough for the Chief to hear. Greg smiled in response.
I walked away from Greg glancing back at the man in the radio room as I walked back into the TV room. I didn’t always agree with some of the Chief’s decisions or ideas, but this was ridiculous. It was clearly an accident, not anything that required any form of discipline.
The crew had been gathered in the TV room for just over an hour when there was a knock at the door.
“That’s us!”
“Still alarm!”
“Here we go!”
The room instantly filled with comments from the anxious firefighters laying around the furniture in a variety of contortions and shapes. The one thing we all had in common was the need to get back on the apparatus, race to another call and fight some fire or tool some cars apart.
A “still alarm” was when someone actually stopped at the firehouse to report a fire or car accident instead of calling 9-1-1 and having it dispatched. When a car pulled into the lot, the phone rang or someone knocked on the door, it would certainly spark a few firefighters up and someone would beg for a still alarm.
In this case, I didn’t move from my comfortable couch position, while at least two other guys jumped up to see what was going on at the door. I just didn’t see the need to crowd the door. If someone was reporting a fire, we would all know soon enough, until then, I waited inside.
I could tell by the tone of voices, this was no emergency being reported outside the door, and tried to get back into the television show we had been watching.
“Hey Lieutenant! Think this belongs to you?” one of the firefighters at the door returned to the TV room carrying a fire coat. This finally made me jump to my feet.
“Where was that?”
A female voice came from behind the firefighter holding my coat…
“Found it in my yard and brought it in my house, I figured it belonged here…”
What are the odds of a coat falling off a truck in the middle of the night, then the resident coming home at that hour to find it and keep it in her house? Apparently good on Glen Riddle Road. After thanking the resident for bringing the coat back, I couldn’t help but walk it past the radio room with a big smile.
“Chief, she found the coat in her yard last night and brought it back… imagine that!”
I turned to Greg standing a ways behind me... “…good thing nobody got in trouble.”
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