Rural structure and rekindle

   After working my "real job" for 4 straight days I finally reached my long break (7days off) and was looking forward to sleeping in and perhaps just vegging out for half a day hiding from the world, but no such luck. About half an hour after my wife had left out to take the kids to school and herself to work the tones went off. I have learned to recognize by the order in which the tones go over the channel as to whether we will be paged out for a first responder call or paged out for a fire or wreck. This was definitely a fire call and I was up and dressed before the tones cleared and dispatch started putting out information. The call was for a attic fire on the corner of Old Tory Trail and Mackey Scott Rd. That address is on my end of the district so I knew I was gonna have a jump start on most everyone. I just did not know how much of one just yet. There are several different ways volunteer departments operate as far as responding to a call. Some respond to their department first and are dispatched from there on the apparatus. Some respond POV to the scene with designated personnel stopping at the station and picking up the apparatus on the way. We operate by the latter in our county, so I was heading straight to the scene. About half way down Old Tory Trail towards Mackey Scott I came across a plume of smoke rolling across the road up ahead and several cars stopped on the shoulder. As I approached I could see the flames. This was not the location dispatch gave us so I had to relay the information back to get the responding resources heading in the right direction. I announced myself 10-23 (on scene) to dispatch and reported that we had a 2 story brick house, flames showing from the attic. I was the first on scene. Over the radio traffic I had heard that we had engines and tankers in route from our 2 mutual aid districts as well as personnel. During the weekdays a lot of our department are working their day jobs so we have automatic aid agreements in place with several surronding districts and we all respond during a structure fire. As I got out of my vehicle I seen 2 teenagers who were standing and watching. I asked as I was strapping on my gear if they knew if all the occupants were out of the house. The young man spoke up and said there was no one home. After my gear was on I could still hear over the traffic that the other responding units were still several minutes out. I was gonna be on my own for a few minutes more. I turned back to the kids and asked them if there were any combustibles or dangerous materials inside such as propane tanks, gas grills, or kerosene heaters that we needed to be aware of. They said they did not know because they did not live there but directed me to a caretaker who was arriving just as I was asking. I redirected my question to him and he seemed a little dazed but told me there was a propane tank out back as he pointed down the hill away from the residence still just looking kinda dazed past me at the burning house. I also asked him again if anyone was inside which he confirmed that no one was home. I grabbed my radio and took off on a jog doing my 360. I had heavy fire showing from the roof and the windows on the A side were blacked out with smoke. I found what I presumed to be the seat of the fire on the B and C corner of the house as it was fully engulfed in flames. I informed dispatch that the house was fully involved and I had made contact with the caretaker and all residents were out of the house. As I finished my 360 I went back to the caretaker to assure him that we had plenty of help on the way. I heard the first engine coming down the drive. It was engine 12-1 from Couchton one of our automatic aid districts. I also noticed Sebastian one of our other district 14 firefighters had arrived and was dressing out. As the truck rolled to a stop I grabbed the attack line off the engine and pulled it around to the front door of the residence since the back door was definitely not going to be a entry point considering the fire conditions there. Sebastian was on his way and I yelled to him to have the engineer charge the line. He came back and brouyght me a SCBA off the truck as well. I put water up the eaves and through the windows which were beginning to shatter from the heat. I darkened the fire down on A side enough to get up on the elevated porch and try the door.It opened but would not open fully because drywall from the ceiling had already fallen in the floor behind it. At that time I noticed fire again over head from these eaves and covered porch and backed out to take up defensive operations until I had help on the hose line. Sebastian pulled the second attack line and had gone around to the C side of the residence to try and stop the fire progression there. Help came and it was a Lt from another aid district Montmoreci Fire Department. I had worked with this guy before and he always seemed to not enjoy working with the newer guys so I wasn't expecting much from him except him wanting to take over. I worked my way back up on the porch again while knocking down the fire on the eaves and roof. There was a lot of patio furniture in the way on the porch so I asked the Lt if he would take the nozzle and I would get us some room to work. I cleared a majority of the porch and we went back to work putting water in the windows and the half opened front door with the Lt on the nozzle now. I once again broke away to try to force the door again when we had a chance and this time I just ripped it off its hinges and tossed it into the front yard. The inside was too far gone to make entry and the ceiling and roof were coming down as well. We forced the bedroom window adjacent to the front door by pulling it and the entire frame out to check that entry point, but it was a no go as well.  The overhead was flaming back up again so we backed out again and took up defensive operations. There was going to be no interior attack from our side. We knocked down the flames on A side including the overhead and worked our way around to the B side of the building. My cheif arrived and asked if I was tired yet and of course I had to pick this point to let him know about my new desire at working out and the 41 pounds I had lost since I joined the department. I definately felt in much better shape since our last structure fire. This is where I noticed a good amount of smoke coming from the vents on the crawl space and punched a few out with my gloved hand and put water in. The Lt had left at this point and gone to rehab so it was me and my nozzle again. There was not much more we could do on this side so I pulled the hose back and left it with my chief and circled the building to see if I could be of use elsewhere. This is where I noticed something odd on the D side of the building least effected by the fire. Inside a wooden enclosure designed to hide the ugly appearance was the propane tank. It was right against the house and even had a few burning boards from the eaves laying on top of it. I was kinda shocked that it was not where I thought it was away from the house. It was right up on it with fire burning just on the other side of the brick wall from it. I removed the burning boards with my gloved hand and sure as shit the gas was still on, so I shut it off. It was a mistake that I did not cathc it during my 360 and could have got a lot of people hurt. I was not aware that someone would put one of these tanks up against there house and also try to hide it for cosmetic reasons. I was also suprised the Crew and Officer on that side had not noticed it as well. I reported to the IC that I had located a propane tank and gas was now off. I was now on to a new problem as the garage side door had been forced open. There were flames coming through the rear entry door from the main house and a strong smell of gasoline inside. The water was pooling up in the garage and there were several pieces of garden equipment in there. We had to get the cargo door to the garage open so we could deal with the gas problem before it ignited. I "probably foolishly" volunteered and went in to see if I could get the door open. I laughingly told the nozzleman at the entry that if it flashed to be ready because I would be coming back out that door and he would probably be putting me out.  I walked in and went to the door and was soon standing in a puddle a few inches deep that smeeld heavily of gasoline. I pulled on the door release after checking both sides for security locks but it would not budge. I stuck my head back out the door and almost like reading my mind, my Chief was coming with a pry bar to get the door started. Another 30 seconds with him on the outside and me on the inside and we had the door open and our puddle of water and gas were no longer an issue. We up righted and removed a generator "our leaking culprit" and removed some of the other equipment to try and save it for the homeowner. The last piece I pulled was a riding lawnmower. I pulled it  out using a pike pole because the ceiling was on the verge of coming down due to the water weight in the attic. We roped off the garage to keep anyone else out and then I finally went to rehab. Several more goes and trips back to rehab we had dumped a lot of water on the fire and overhaul was complete. One challenge we ran into during the attack was water supply. We have no fire hydrants in our district so we are good at rural water supply. We had a dry hydrant less than 100 yards from the house but someone had drained that pond for the winter. We had to shuttle from a neighboring district using their closest fire hydrant and never once lost water supply. We used nurse tankers I think mainly because our chief despises our dump tank so much. At one point engine 12-1, a late model Kenworth, tried to pull a draft off of the swimming pool but was unsuccessful. We had no problem getting the draft later on that night during the rekindle with our 1973 Ford Jaco but then again our trucks and operators are very use to doing this whereas our aid districts with their fancy hydrants are not. Another challenge, the floor and roof had partially collapsed into the middle leaving plenty of voids and pockets that we had trouble getting to. We were able to walk into about 65% of the house on the floors during overhaul. The rest had collapsed or were in too much danger of collapsong to use safely. We used a chainsaw and cellar nozzle to get into voids and try to prevent a rekindle but I guess we did not get it all. In all we were there 5 hours the first time and 2 hours later that night after it did finally rekindle. The floor was totally gone when we came back that night so all we could do was try and reach the hot spots from outside the remaining standing structure. The structure had deteriorated to the point that any entry was deemed to dangerous so we just did a little surround and drown while we placed the contents of the swimming pool inside what was once a beautiful house. Suspected cause of the fire was that the homeowner had not had there chimney inspected even after having a minor chimney fire the previous year. They said they were going to have it inspected this weekend but decided to use it because of the cold whether. They apparently left the house with a fire burning in the fireplace or perhaps unknown to them burning in their chimney. Also the house was loaded down with space heaters as we found no less that 8 of them during overhaul, although none of them seemed to be the cause of the fire. It is that time of year where people will try to save a buck or two in cost by using alternative means to heat their home. It is also the busiest time of the year in our district for structure fires. I dont think it is a mere coincidence.

Firefighter 1

I got my test results back for my firefighter one and I am excited to say that I passed. I wonder how everyone else in my department who was in our FF1 class did. I know of at least one who did not pass but we had a total of 7 of us taking the class with me being the most "junior" firefighter in the class. The pager has been quite lately for fire calls. We have a department SOP that no one goes on First responder calls alone. When those come across I wait to see if anyone signs on so I can go and assist. I plan on getting into a basic EMT course next but I am wanting to see if my department will sponsor me and pay for the training. They have done it before in the past for other members in our department so I am hoping they can do it for me as well. I have a goal to join the department at Savannah River site where I work. I am already a employee for the site but to get hired onto the department there I need to have my FF1 and EMT basic. It would be the only job in the field I could go into as a entry level and support my family. It is my dream to do this as a living but financially I am on seeking this one job that would transfer me in and maintain my seniority and rate of pay as if i had been there the entire time. I know there are probably better paying jobs out there in the field but I think If they are out there then they are very few and far between. Maybe I am misinformed. If someone can tell me what the expected entry level firefighter makes in your area I would love to hear it.

So what started me in the fire service?

     As I mentioned in my last post I am a veteran. I served in the US Navy from Jan 2000 to May 2005. If you join the Navy as in anyone who attends boot camp you will get introduced to fire fighting. It is taught in boot camp and is continually trained until the day you leave the service. Especially while on deployment.

Which makes a whole lot of sense considering when you are at sea and a fire breaks out you cant just call your local fire department to come take care of it for you.






I received most of my advanced training while stationed on board the USS John C Stennis CVN-74.

During underway periods you are constantly drilling for any scenario that may come up. We were deployed immediately after 9/11 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and usually conducted a general quarters drill at least twice a week to maintain our readiness for an enemy attack. I was a Nuclear machinist mate in the service so like all my other fellow nukes we were assigned to the repair locker responsible for the ships Main Machinery Rooms and Reactor Machinery Rooms. Being as these spaces were restricted access except for us "nukes" we were trained extensively to combat casualties in the engineering spaces. Of course I never volunteered when I got to the ship to be placed on one of the 2 fire teams that manned our repair locker but my chief was sure to volunteer me. Drilling constantly during a 7 month deployment I worked my way up from being a hose man to nozzle and eventually became the team leader and on scene leader there after.

 

I learned quite a bit during those underway periods which has given me a good base heading into the civilian fire service. I missed that part of the Navy when I left "and a whole lot more". I thought about joining a department when I got out but never really settled anywhere in my crazy life long enough to put down roots until now. Now since I have got back into the fire service it has become one of my number one goals to make this my career. Tonight I continue on that track as I take my Fire fighter one exam. I have my skills assessment on Wednesday. Then I will have 1 of my 2 requirements complete to move into a paid position. I hope my streak of great test continues and then I can work on my next step EMT basic. 

I guess something new to occupy my time..........

 Well I guess my endless search lately for information and stories on the web has encouraged me to start my own blog. I found that i could spend hours lost looking for "information" on the things that interest me. I alwasy found myself knee deep in someones blog and enjoying every minute reading about the things that mattered to me and them. How odd is it that you can feel a bond with someone over thousands of miles away. I hope to be even a small bit as good a blogger as some of the inspirations I have found on here. I guess a little back ground is in Order before I get too far into things. I live in a small town called Windsor, in South Carolina. I am former Navy and still have a job in a related field that my Navy training prepared me for. I recently remarried to the love of my life who was my high school sweet heart. I joined my volunteer fire department back in January and absolutely love fire fighting. The career field here does not exactly start with a pay base that would support my family. There fore I have been left doing what I have to to support my family and wishing I was doing fire fighting as a career. There still might be a way and we can get into that latter as well. Just so everyone gets caught up I will probably spend several of my early post in this blog getting you caught up in what i have done as a firefighter so far. It will probably pale in comparison to plenty of FF blogs you read online but that is my life here. Now I leave you with a few terrible pictures.

This is another story all together. If it makes you smile or laugh then good.



My beautiful wife



Some of the friends I made in my 1152 class.



My beautiful daughter


 Here is me at my 1152 burn back in May 2010


Auto Extrication class practicing with some hand tools.

forcing a door