Sunday, July 01, 2007
Twilight Zone Firefighting
Responded to a structure fire up toward Mount St. Helens a few days ago. The call came in around 9:30 pm, and I was at the station for training. (Actually, the training started at 6:00 pm, but I ended up on four other calls and had only just gotten back to the station when the tones went off again). Anyway, it was a rip-roaring house fire that we fought for several hours. We finished up, exhausted, around 3:00 a.m., and were on our way back to the station. We stopped at a card-lock to fuel the engine, and the local Shell was open 24 hours. I knew they'd have food.
Another firefighter and I went into the store and started ordering several of their freshly cooked breakfast sandwiches, when the lady behind the counter asked: "Did you just finish fighting that fire up at Toutle?"
"Yeah," we said, still drooling over the sandwiches.
"That was sad," she said, shaking her head. "I was just reading about it."
Okay, at three in the morning, after fighting a fire for five or six hours, I was pretty beat. And my brain didn't quite grasp what she had said. Surely she must be talking about another fire.
"Read about it?" I asked. "Are you sure that wasn't the big fire in Longview over by Wal-Mart?"
"The one in Toutle, on Kent Road," she said. "It's in the paper."
Insert Twilight Zone theme here
I grabbed a paper from the rack and flipped to the Area News section, and sure enough, there it was: CREWS BATTLE TOUTLE HOUSE FIRE
I looked at Luke, my partner, still trying to figure out how the newspaper could have an article about a fire we had been fighting, even though we weren't back at the station yet.
Okay, I know, I know, they just went to print earlier and all, but at 0300 it was pretty weird. I half expected - in some weird, M. Knight Shyamalan way - to find Luke and I listed as having been killed in the blaze, but we just didn't know we were dead yet.
I need more sleep.
Still.
