The next decision is where to park the truck and if your are on an Engine (aka a Pump) you need to position it a house or two away from the fire building to allow room for the Ladder Truck which needs to be positioned in front of the fire building.
The next decision is which size and which length hose to bring in to the fire. You make your choice, ask the people on the street if anyone is still in the house and where, ask them to move away from the house and put on your Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus.
Smoke is pouring out of the 2nd floor windows and the front door is open. You are either a Lieutenant or a Captain and you take the nozzle. The Private is right behind you.
When you were a paperboy he was the six year old kid who would bring you the money when you did your collections. You knew his mother, his father and all his brothers and sisters. His life is in your hands.
On the way into the house, a young girl is crying. Her kitty is in the house. You tell her that you'll get her out.
It's the middle of the day and as you make your way up the stairs, the darkness sets in. The sound of your own breathing in the SCBA is just about all that you can hear along with the roar of the fire.
The hose stiffens up as the water charges into the line. The third member of your crew is the pump operator. If there is a water surge when the hydrant line is attached to the pump, it can lift a 200 pound firefighter right off the ground.
As you reach the second floor the heat makes it impossible to stand up so down on your hands and knees you go.
You see a little shimmer of light below a door and you know that you have found the fire. You position yourself to the side of the door and open it. It's a bedroom fire and everything in the room is burning. The fire has burned through the ceiling and you can see that the attic is totally engulfed.
You open the nozzle and hit the ceiling with a spray which immediately turns to steam and knocks down the fire. Just then you hear the kitten crying. The Private found it and put it in his pocket.
You tell him to take the kitten outside - otherwise it will die. He does not want to leave you alone in building. You reassure him that you will be all right for a couple of minutes and tell him to hurry back.
He leaves and you are alone. You remember how the fire crews of the past had six men. Now you hear the ladder crew on the roof chopping a hole in the roof to relieve the pressure. It is comforting.
You also hear over the radio that the Deputy Chief is on the scene and he has just struck a second alarm. That is good too. More help is on the way.
Just as you aim a solid stream of water through the hole in the ceiling, the line goes dead. You find out later that the hose burst and the pump operator had to shut down the line and disconnect the burst section and replace it with another 50' section of hose.
The heat is building up now to the point where you might have to leave the hose and evacuate. It is so hot that a drop of water falls from the nozzle onto a glass table and it shatters.
The Private returns, the line charges up and you start delivering a solid stream of water at the rate of 100 gallons a minute into the raging attic but there is a problem. The minute or so without putting any water on the fire has increased the temperature in the attic so high that the solid stream of water is being converted to steam and it is having no effect.
At that precise moment, the Engine 5 crew is making their way up the stairs with a larger line and they start hitting the attic. The bells on your SCBA start ringing and you have to get another tank.
After the fire is knocked down, you begin the salvage and overhaul to check for hot spots. There were no deaths and no injuries but two families lost all their belongings and are homeless.
One kitty was saved.
"This is an unusual active period," says Deputy Chief Jerry Irving.
"It is not just Medford having all the fires. Malden and Somerville are having a lot of house fires too."
All these fires have been investigated and all of them have been ruled accidental with causes such as careless disposal of smoking materials, electrical, malfunction of a heating system and overheated cooking utensils.
This is the list of house fires in Medford, MA to date in 2010. There have been no deaths. At least one occupant was treated for smoke inhalation.
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