Leeward
Why is everything so orange and warm? Whilst most of Poynette is pondering breakfast choices, I have a new and more immediate interest. Well, I should say me and Lexi have a new and more immediate interest.
Probie Lexi is behind me, helping with pre-dawn hose management at a fuly involved semi fire. "Fully involved", as in metal melting, road bubbling, starting grass on fire in the dry October fields. Mitch, Lexi and me are first on scene. Mitch is at Engine 33’s pump panel, making sure I have water, and others from PDFD are on the way. Or may have already arrived. No idea, really, because there’s this fifteen-foot tall, sixty-foot long wall of flame in front of me, and it has my full attention.
Grabbing the nozzle as Lexi flaked the hose, “Where to start?” I asked myself. “Anywhere!” came Luke Skywalker's echo from May of 1977, telling Han to shoot the garbage compactor eel thing. Knock down some flame and move on down the line. And so the first few minutes went. The thunder of intense fire within reach, the roar of water provided by Mitch and the hissing and cracking of metal being - briefly - cooled. All I really knew for sure was Darth Vader was somehow breathing through my mask and trying to talk to Lexi was impossible. I had to shut the bail on the nozzle to get the noise level down to shout and that was counter-productive. So, just keep at it. You go, Darth. Breath and flow. Breath and flow.
We’re all warned about tunnel vision. We’re all warned about the reptilian part of the brain taking over. We’re trained on it. We can parrot the training back. We can teach others the training. But if there’s a blazing fire being the only thing in the darkness you can see, it is not so much tunnel vision. It is the only vision you have. Fourteen feet tall times sixty feet long is well north of 100,000 square inches, and you have less than 100 square inches of effective water stream at any given moment. The thermal density of a fully involved chunk of metal the size of a semi is immense. The steel and cast iron are hanging in there, but everything else including the aluminum is a burning / melting Second Law of Thermodynamics show, at 1,200+ degrees.
Darth is breathing enthusiastically through my air reserves, and this is becoming more than a little frustrating at 60 square inches a second, barely making a dent in the thermal profile. Engine 33 has a deck gun on it and I’m hoping someone is thinking about cracking that bad boy open and letting loose with a torrent. But it’s not like you can call a time out to even look back and see if the second wave of PDFD has arrived to man the gun, or a second line.
All I know is Lexi is behind me, helping with the hose, and Mitch (or someone) is at the pump panel, flowing water. I’m on the leeward side to keep the fire from jumping the road. Smoke and flames are pouring past me, and it is near impossible to see anything other than bright orange, or smoky black. If I back up, the water becomes ineffective, so I press into the blast furnace. I notice the fuel tanks are coming apart in the heat and feeding the inferno. Reptilian brain takes over. It is flight or fight time and the lizard in me chooses fight. I focus the stream on the ruptured fuel tank in front of me.
A hundred and twentyish pounds per square inch of water pressure smashes into the fuel and atomizes it. EVERYTHING gets orange and warm INSTANTLY. Ok, now I'm in the fire. Way to go, lizard. All the donning and doffing practice comes into play and I’m doing fine. No skin exposed, no immediate burning. Certainly warm. But not burning.
The flash goes by quickly, and I don't notice my helmet strap coming apart. Me and the hose are just a single tunnel vision unit at this point. Protagonist versus antagonist; the only way this could get better is if my high school English teacher drove by. The intensity and depth of the orange filling my field of vision is stunning, and I notice I’m being mezmorized by it. The noticing means mammal brain is coming back on line, and it instructs me to take two steps back. Do so, and start sweeping right to left. The fuel atomization now past, the chemical energy available to the fire is vastly reduced, and we start gaining ground. Ten to fifteen minutes into it, Lexi and me have fought the fire back enough that we can make our way to the windward side, which is not so conveniently down a slope, partially on fire. That’s when I first notice Probie James also has a line, and is flowing water too.
After a few minutes on the windward side, my low air alarm goes off, and Lexi punches me in the shoulder to get Darth’s attention. Do the calculation of just ripping the mask off and staying put now that I’m upwind, but we have a second line going, Lexi deserves some quality time on nozzle, and Mitch has arrived too. Take my leave to go grab another air tank. Strap a new SCBA on and come back in time to relieve Lexi as her low air alarm goes off. That is, I think that’s what happened. Reptile brain, again.
Vader through another air tank at far less intensity of effort. Still, the rules are you gotta go to rehab after two air tanks. There’s ten or so on scene now and the fire is knocked down, so I don’t feel like a slacker sitting in the rehab chair getting my vitals checked. I do notice the chair just happens to be sitting right next to a cemetery. Contemplating one’s mortality is not as conducive to lowering blood pressure as you might at first suspect.
But as I'm sitting in the chair trying to zen my pulse back into double digits while mop up is occuring, the big orange gas bag in the sky starts to rise in the east and another gorgeous fall mammalian Wisconsin day begins. Minus one semi, but without injury or a wildland fire. Thanks DNR, and Arlington Fire, for helping.
Back to the station for hose cleaning, air bottle filling and maybe some new screws for my helmet strap.
Oh, and some donuts (kinda got distracted at breakfast).
