Fire

 

Fire: A Short Story 
By Arthur Cofresi

I don’t like fire or barbecue.  You see, people who have never been in a fire don’t know what it is like. In the movies or on TV, you can’t smell the smoke or feel the heat.  It is difficult to imagine what it is like to smell like fire a week later.  Or, have soot cling to your skin and it doesn’t wash off with soap.  And for days  and days to blow black crap out your nose.

Lost in Smoke

I got lost in a large walk-in closet one time.  A Christmas tree fire had consumed the living room and filled the house with an incredible amount of thick black smoke.  No one was home, but we had to make a sweep of the bedrooms, nevertheless.  My partner and I held hands as we circled the room touching the walls, reaching out in the darkness feeling for a body; perhaps the body of a small child.  We talk through the facemasks and I could hear him perfectly, I just couldn’t see him.  I checked my flashlight.  I thought it was broken because I didn’t see the light until I had it up against my facemask.

When we found the walk-in closet I stumbled over some shoes and lost contact with my partner.  He left me.  I was all right, I was not in any danger, but I was lost.  I couldn’t feel the closet walls and suddenly an impenetrable wall of darkness consumed me.

Five minutes later the room was ventilated, the smoke cleared and I was standing in the middle of clothes on hangers, shoes, and boxes of all kinds.

Like I said, I was never in any danger, I never felt fear, and help was only a few feet away, but the feeling of being lost in complete darkness where beams of light cannot penetrate is very sobering.

The Old Days

In the old days, firefighters covered up, except for an area around their ears.  The reason was simple.  With protective clothing and adrenalin flowing through your body, you feel like superman.  Firefighters equipped this way can sustain temperatures approaching 300 degrees, but not for long.  But  when you have padded gloves protecting your hands, and cool air flowing through your facemask you don’t know what the temperature is.  So you exposed a little body part to the heat.  When it gets really hot, your ears start to tingle.  When they start to crackle it’s time to get out.

Besides Fighting Fires

Firemen don’t fight fires all the time.  Sometimes people get lucky, like the time I was driving the engine when we went out for an early Saturday morning hydrant inspection.  On the way back to the house, we took the long way.  It was beautiful outside and who knows maybe a pretty young girl might be jogging by.  Only this time it was a middle aged man, who while jogging suffered a heart attack.  There was no one around.  No witnesses, no emergency call, only us–casually driving by, and a body lying on the sidewalk face down.  He was sitting up in the emergency room complaining about his headache when we left him.

Spin Out

Another time, we were called out to investigate a spin out.  When we arrived under a heavy rain shower there was nothing to be seen.  Everything appeared to be normal.  No collision, no accident to report, no injured bystanders, nothing.

We were about to leave when the Captain saw some tire marks in the mud alongside the pedestrian trail.  It led to some thick underbrush by the side of the road.  A woman accidentally hit the gas pedal while she prepared to make a stop.  The car spun out on the rain slicked street and headed for the landscape.

We found her alive, unhurt stuck inside her car twenty feet below the embankment swallowed up by the heavy undergrowth. She was wondering how long she would have remained trapped in her car if we hadn’t stopped to look around.

Years later, I worked for Fire Prevention. I hope in a small way was instrumental in securing safe work and eating environments because me in partnership with another group of professionals, enforced fire code provisions of the California, and San Francisco Building Code.

What I Did and Didn’t Do

I never rescued a naked woman from a burning building, and I never saved a cat stuck in a tree, but I did work with some of the bravest, toughest, and most honorable men in my life.

I trusted them with my life and they entrusted their lives with me. There is no greater feeling  of doing a job well done; one where you confront your fears and laugh with friends afterwards.  We ate and worked together, we complained, and played pranks, and we’d argue, we rooted for our teams, and sometimes got pissed at one another.

And like soldiers in combat, we bonded like brothers. Never thinking of ourselves as heroes, rather we were just a bunch of really fortunate guys.

Tagged Arthur Confresi, books, fire, fire fighters, short story