Coholic #3: Bonded By Fire
“Dispatch to Battalion 1 be advised we have received multiple calls, repeat, multiple calls.”
“Battalion 1 copies, all units move to the tac channel.”
“Hit it,” the Captain says to Riggs. “Nothing will make me happier than beating Engine 3 into their own first due.”
“You got it.”
Engine 3's coming from the opposite direction, their lights strobing through the haze, but we've got them beat. I'm already pulling my pack forward, checking my regulator, adrenaline spiking.
I'm out the door quickly, boots hitting pavement, already sweating inside my coat. The duplex is fully involved on the second floor, thick dark smoke billowing out of windows that are about to light off and roaring flames into the night where it already has. I can feel the heat hit my face, and I haven't even gotten close yet.
The Captain jumps on the radio: “Engine 1 is on scene, two-and-a-half-story wood-frame duplex— heavy fire showing, division two side alpha. We'll be stretching a line to the alpha side front door for an offensive attack. 360 in progress, stand by for further."
“X,” the captain yells toward me, “get the line stretched, but be ready to move it.”
I nod and grab the cross lay, throwing a few sections over my shoulder, heading toward the front door. Riggs is behind me, flaking out the line, then running back to the truck, yelling, “Come on, come on,” wrestling with a coupling stuck in the bed before it breaks free and he charges the line.
“X,” the captain yells, jogging back from his walk-around, sweat already beading on his forehead. “Move it to the back.”
“Let's go,” I yell to Riggs, working to move the line to the rear while the Captain's voice crackles over the radio again: "Engine 1 to all incoming units 360 complete. We have heavy fire in the rear, redeploying to the Charlie. We will remain in the offensive strategy."
Around back, the heat is impressive. Every window on the second floor has blown out, and fire is rolling out and up under the eaves, threatening the power supply coming in from the street. The siding is melting, peeling away like a marshmallow over a campfire, dripping down in hot, sticky globs.
I mask up. The regulator hisses, and I taste the metallic tang of the air system. My hands are shaking, but it’s just adrenaline, not fear. I open the line up and knock fire away from the power line. The last thing we need is that coming loose.
The Captain's pulling on his pack, shouting over the roar of flames. “We're gonna have to fight our way up these stairs and in through the back door. It's about to get real hot. You ready?”
My heart's pounding so hard I can feel it in my ears.
“Yes sir.”
“Let's go.”
The fire is overhead, rolling over us as we take the stairs winding up to the second floor. We're fighting as we go, delivering offensive attacks and sending a punishing stream of water ripping through any opening we can see and off of the ceiling of the deck covering. The fire responds, pushing hot vapor from the water as it turns to steam right at us, finding every gap in our gear.
“Keep hitting it!” the Captain yells from behind me.
The stairs creak under our weight and the weight of the charged line. The water flooding back down the stairs is making us lose our footing. “Almost there!” the Captain shouts, but his voice sounds distant over the roar. We make it to the landing and are held in place by the intensity of the fire blowing out every failed window and the open back door.
I'm maybe three feet from the doorway, trying to stay under the heat layer, but there is no cool zone, just the fire rolling out above my head.
“Hit it!” yells the Captain. So I do, sending water screaming as far as I can inside, sweeping all around, turning left and right to flood water into the open windows and back through the doorway. For a second, the fire backs down, and we see our chance.
“Let's go!” the Captain yells.
My helmet feels like it's cooking my skull, and sweat pours down my face inside the mask, stinging my eyes as we make our way through the back door.
I advance into the apartment, as low as I possibly can while still fighting fire and moving. The heat is unreal; even my breath feels hotter in my lungs.
The fire is everywhere, rolling across the ceiling, climbing the walls, eating everything in its path. I sweep the nozzle back and forth, knocking down flames, but they keep coming back.
“Keep moving that nozzle!” the Captain's yelling.
Debris and superheated water rain down on us. Drywall is being violently torn from the walls and ceiling, bouncing off my helmet and shoulders. I can feel the heat through three layers of gear. My knees are burning against the floor, and I feel pain like I’m being stung by bees inside my helmet, behind my ears, and on my neck where the gear doesn't seal perfectly. I want to rip the helmet off, tear open my coat, but I can't. I won't.
From behind me, I hear Smooth's voice: “You guys got this! Don't give up! Push through!”
So I do. I crawl deeper into hell, fighting the fire one room at a time, steam and smoke filling my vision until I can't tell which way is out. My body is yelling at me to retreat, but something deeper keeps me moving forward.
Room by room, the fire begins to surrender. The orange glow dims. The roar becomes a whisper, then silence.
Outside, I rip off my helmet and mask, gasping for air that doesn't burn.
Steam rises from my coat, from my gloves, from the top of my head. My face feels like it's on fire, and my hands are shaking from the adrenaline crash.
Rock walks over, lighting a cigarette, studying my face.
“You know, just because you wear the gear doesn't make you a firefighter. I've seen many come and go that I would never call one. You weren't afraid to go in there. You're a firefighter to me.”
I'm too tired to respond, but it doesn't matter. He's already walking away.
I put my helmet back on and headed back up the stairs to the BC, calling me up to the charred unit. “Any other day we would have burned the roof off this place,” he says, kicking at the blackened floorboards. “They found a trail of kerosene going down the front steps and into the downstairs unit. You guys stopped it before it could reach it. It's kind of unbelievable.”
The Chief walks in, looks around at the destruction we prevented from spreading.
“Who was in here?” he asks.
“X was with Rock,” the BC answers.
The Chief looks at me, still smoking, my face still red as a lobster.
“Now, Rock, I understand, but you, kid... damn.” He shakes his head and pats me on the shoulder. “You’re one of us now; I don’t care where you came from,” he says, continuing to move through the wreckage.
Coholic is an attempt to make sense of trauma, identity, and what remains when everything else burns away.
This miniseries pulls excerpts from the full-length novel.
EPISODE 1: Born Into Fire | EPISODE 2: We Are All Broken
Contributing artists include: Ryan Kacsandy and Chad Kimes
