Thursday, July 15, 2010

Fire House Rules

“Are you ready?” the Battalion Chief asks me as I lurch towards the smoke-filled room. I’m dressed in firefighter’s gear, the helmet strapped on my head, the oxygen tank’s harness pinching my shoulders, the air mask covering my face. I must look like somebody’s fifth grader on “Take your Child to your Dangerous Job” day – my boots are three sizes too big, the helmet slides back and forth, and I’ve resisted the urge to ask for a pair of pants with cuffs so I won’t trip on the bottoms. I don’t know if I’m sweating from nerves or from the 95 degree heat, aided by the twenty pounds of gear I’m wearing. Firefighter outfits don’t necessarily “breathe.”

We’re in downtown Concord just off Main Street, outside one of the Sanel Block buildings, slated for demolition in the coming days. The owner’s given the Concord Fire Department permission to use the buildings for training until they’re torn down. With no money in the budget for a new training facility, the Fire Department takes every opportunity it finds to practice its skills, and tonight it’s Engine 4 and its five firefighters’ turn.

Jim Freitas, Engine 4’s knob guy (he controls the flow of water from the truck), gives me advice as I wait my turn. “Remember – it’s all about the couplings,” Jim tells me. Jim’s been with the Department for a little more than five years. He found me my gear when I arrived, showed me the fire station’s layout and was the assistant chef who served dinner a few hours ago. That dinner’s about to make a special, one-time only reverse appearance if I’m not careful, so I listen to Jim explain. “It’s all about the male and female couplings. The female end will always lead you back to the truck – the male end heads towards the fire,” Jim explains as he shows me the difference in the male and female hose ends. “Feel for those metal bumps and then the hose, and you’ve found it.”

“Bumps to the pump,” Chief Ken Folsom reminds me, “Once you find the hose, don’t let go of it. Follow it like a clothes line until you get out.” I try to say something funny like, “Hey, ‘Female Coupling’ would be a great name for an all-woman heavy metal band,” but Ken and Jim are focused on the tasks at hand, and I probably should be too – besides, with the air mask covering my face and the nascent signs of heat stroke gnawing at my brain, it would’ve sounded like, “Tell my wife to remember me fondly.”

This drill’s designed to test firefighters’ ability to evacuate a smoke-filled, pitch-black burning room while flames rage nearby – the key is to find the female coupling and follow the right hose to safety. I have an advantage over Engine 4 – I watched the first few go through the drill earlier, standing in the corner with a thermal imaging camera, seeing them fumble in the rubble-strewn darkness for the exit. The room was completely dark, any chance for the twilight to make it through the one window erased by the smoke pouring from the machine on the floor. Taking my eyes off the camera meant instant midnight, so I kept my eyes fixed on the ghostly image on the tiny screen.

“Your air is on,” Chief Folsom tells me as he hits a button on the side of my mask, the cool air bathing my sweaty face. He leads me to the room, and I begin. I’m seconds into the exercise, and any appreciation I’d had for the work firefighters do has increased tenfold. I can’t see a thing, my gear is heavy, and I’m crawling on my hands and knees searching for the metal sections of the hose. Add a screaming citizen and actual fire into the mix, and I’d be the last person you’d want to see coming to your rescue.

Lieutenant Alan Robidas, and firefighter Dan Bickers, from Central, are running the exercise and coach me as I go. “So what are you looking for?” “What will you do once you find it?” “Where’s the wall? Have you found it yet?” I find the couplings underneath broken ceiling tiles, heed the Chief’s advice and grasp onto the hose, following it to the end.

Outside, the Chief and the men from Central debrief Engine 4, reminding them not to be fooled by the overlapping hoses. Moments later, I’m in the fire engine, Jim sitting next to me as we drive back to the station. Chief Ken treats us all to ice cream for a training exercise well done. It may be the first time in my life I actually earned a bowl of ice cream. It was delicious.

I’d arrived at the station hours earlier, right at the start of the thirteen-hour night shift. Lieutenant Merle DeWitt greeted me at the door and introduced me to Paul Sirois. Paul’s been a firefighter in Concord for almost eight years and will be riding in the ambulance tonight. This team of five firefighters works four days in a row with four days off – two day shifts of eleven hours and two night shifts of thirteen. Scott Marcotte, a third-generation Concord firefighter, on the job since 1987, provides a primer in the city’s firefighting footprint. “We have three stations plus the ladder truck on duty all the time. Each station has five firefighters, an engine and an ambulance, and Central has the ladder truck. One of the five firefighters in each fire house is also a paramedic, so we’re usually pretty busy.”

Merle then explains the bell system. “One’s for a medical call, two’s for a box alarm, and three bells probably means a building’s on fire.” I’m dizzy with anticipation, and as we sit down for supper, I wonder how fast these guys will bolt from the table at the first sound of bells. Dinner passes with no bells but with a lovely chicken dish and a Swiss chard salad from the station’s garden. “It’s been unusually slow - very quiet this summer so far,” Scott mentions to me after dinner. “Don’t be surprised if we don’t get many calls.” Scott’s an expert as a member of Engine 4, the busiest by far in the city, outpacing the other stations by hundreds of calls each year.

A firefighter waiting for a call is a lot like an ice fisherman waiting for a fish – you sit, you wait, you eat, you chat, and you clean your gear until a fish arrives or the bell rings, and then it’s time to move. About five hours into the shift, as we sit watching TV, Paul and Jim share stories of things they’ve seen on the job and how “Murphy’s Law prevails at a fire.” Paul emphasizes that trust is the key to a firefighter’s success. “We have to have each other’s back – always,” he says to me. It’s a calm scene until a bell rings, and Paul is out of his recliner like he’s been shot out of a water cannon.

Before I realize what’s happening, Scott asks me if I want to join Paul on the “bus,” (what they call the ambulance). I agree and Scott runs down the hallway to catch them. I follow him and make it before the ambulance pulls out, grabbing a seat in the back. Paul’s driving the bus tonight and Keith Richardson, the fifth of tonight’s crew, the team’s paramedic and lead chef, scans his laptop in the front to see where we’re going.

We arrive at a high-rise just off Main Street, and Alan and Dan from Central greet us at the door, their ladder truck parked in the lot next to the building. We move to the elevator, Paul pushing the stretcher and Keith lugging the portable EKG machine. Moments later we’re in a woman’s apartment - she’d called 911, complaining of chest pains, and Keith jumps into action, asking about her ailments and checking her vital signs. Minutes later we’re in the hallway with the woman on the stretcher. Dan asks her if she wants us to shut off her TV, still blaring in her bedroom. “Leave it on for my cat,” she instructs, and we head downstairs. She’s lucid and talks with Keith, who’s a combination of professional, precise and very friendly, asking her, “On a scale of one to ten, where’s your pain now? What did you have to eat tonight? Have you been taking your medication?”

We arrive at the hospital, Paul and Keith wheel the woman inside, and after a brief exchange with the nurse on duty, and we leave and drive to the station. “Calls like that are about seventy percent of what we do,” Paul tells me as he readies the stretcher for the next call. Not quite a scene from ER, but lack of drama at a time like this is a good thing.

Back at the station, it’s well past midnight and the place is quiet. Keith does his paperwork and Paul restocks the ambulance. The others are resting, waiting for those bells to ring. I find a comfortable spot and drift off to sleep, content in the conviction that Concord’s in good hands with people like this down the hallway, ready at a moment’s notice to set things right.