Fire Born
A Firehouse 343 Novel
Christina Moore
Published by Black Room Press
KINDLE EDITION
*****
Fire Born: A Firehouse 343 Novel
Copyright 2013 by Christina Moore
Cover design Copyright 2013 Christina Moore
Fire scene and flame frame courtesy of Bigstock
www.bigstock.com
Model photo courtesy of Hot Damn! Stock Images
www.hotdamnstock.com
*****
This book is a work of fiction. Any person or place appearing herein is fictitious or is used fictitiously.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. Please do not reproduce or transmit this book, in whole or in part, by any means without permission in writing from the author.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DEDICATION:
This novel is dedicated in honorable memory to every firefighter who has given his or her life in service to their community. For their courage, their devotion, their sacrifice.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Many thanks to Lt. Michael McClaskie of the Central Township Fire Department for his information regarding what firefighters do on a daily basis. Your help has brought an even greater sense of realism to this story.
Thanks also to the New Lakota Dictionary Online for providing an invaluable source of information on the Lakota Sioux language. I am grateful to have learned how to write words we use every day in another tongue. PhilámayayA.
A hero’s not afraid to give his life.
A hero’s gonna save me just in time.
~ Skillet, “Hero”
One
“Dispatch to City Fire—Engine 14, Ladder 12, Rescue 3. Residential structure fire at 1427 West High Street. Respond Code 3.”
There was a flurry of activity as Gracechurch, Montana’s bravest hurried into their turnout gear. Code 3—and the call for the rescue unit—meant not only a structure fire but possibly trapped citizens.
“Hey Chris!”
Chris Paytah lifted his head for but a moment as he yanked his trousers into place, securing them with red suspenders and then grabbing his jacket to throw it on. “Yeah, Boss?”
The unit’s shift supervisor, Captain Calvin Maynard, was securing the hooks on his own jacket as he said, “You’re driving, kid.”
Chris, himself a lieutenant, laughed and replied with, “I always drive, Cal, because you suck at it, old man.”
They joked good naturedly with each other and the other men on B-Shift as the three vehicles loaded up—it was a natural defense mechanism to steel themselves against the horrors they might soon be facing. Chris turned the key in the ignition of Engine 14 as soon as he slid behind the wheel, then reached to flip the switches for the lights and siren. Calvin had the radio mike in hand, already coordinating their route to the location with the ladder and rescue drivers.
“Good to go, kid,” Calvin said, though as always he was a breath or so too late, because Chris was already pulling out of the station.
The roads appeared to be light on vehicle traffic, which was a blessing as Chris navigated the pumper through the streets. The fire station was located in a section of the city referred to as Old Town by the locals, as it was the geographical area in which the town had first been settled. But time had brought new people, and new people meant expansion—the parts of Gracechurch built in the last 30 to 40 years were, naturally, referred to as New Town. While the firehouse had been retrofitted a number of times over the century or so since Gracechurch’s founding, it had never been relocated. The address in Old Town meant that if a call was to a location in New Town, the fire had every chance of spreading before they arrived, making the fire department’s job that much more difficult. The city department could certainly receive assistance from a smaller fire station out of one of the four surrounding townships, but their response time could sometimes be longer than the city’s.
Response time was one of the reasons the city had been clamoring for a second fire station in New Town for much of the last three decades. But for one reason or another, the voters had refused to support the tax levies that were an unfortunate necessity in keeping the fire department equipped and staffed. Prior to 2001, only three levies had passed in a span of about fifteen years. Rumor had it that the population were adhering to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
September 11, 2001 changed that outlook. The terrorist attacks that shocked the world had been a wake-up call to communities across the nation. Suddenly, first responders such as police, firefighters, and EMTs were afforded a much deeper respect and appreciation than perhaps they’d ever received before. When word reached them that the FDNY had lost 343 men while they saved the lives of others at the World Trade Center, the citizens of Gracechurch knew they could no longer sit idly by and do nothing for their own. No one could say for sure with whom the idea had originated, but like a flame to dry tinder, the idea to build not only a new firehouse but a tribute to those selfless men spread quickly through the city, and on Election Day, everyone in Gracechurch knew that the yearly tax levy would pass.
However, in order to do what they truly wanted to do, the money couldn’t be gained simply by passing the Division of Fire’s tax levy. The good people of Gracechurch held numerous fundraisers every year after 9/11 to support the project, collecting money at these events or simply donating to a trust account at the Gracechurch Savings and Loan for a new firehouse, new vehicles and turnout gear, and additional firefighters. It had taken the better part of the last ten years, but they had done it: The opening of Firehouse 343—so named in tribute to those 343 brothers in arms—was just six weeks away.
Chris recognized the surge of adrenaline pumping through his blood as his body automatically preparing him for the fight ahead. Code 3 calls were always extra tense because it meant the unit’s attention was divided between taming the flames and rescuing victims. An added benefit to having two fire stations in the city would be the ability to put one unit on each task—or so they hoped. Only time would tell how well that worked out. But even if the two stations operated mainly in their respective sections of the city, the people of Gracechurch would still have the bravest at hand. Their extensive training meant that they could, and would, get the job done.
“Dispatch, this is Engine 14,” Calvin said into the radio. “Are police on-scene?”
“Affirmative, Engine 14. LEOs are on-site directing traffic and establishing perimeter,” the dispatcher replied. “Adjacent businesses have been evacuated.”
Moments later, Chris leaned forward in his seat, his eyes widening a fraction as a plume of black smoke came into view. “Is it just me,” he mused aloud, “or does that look like it’s coming from that apartment building at the corner of High and Main?”
“Shit. Sure enough does,” Calvin muttered.
The building at High and Main was about fifty years old, one of the oldest in New Town (having been built before that end of the city had come to be known by that moniker), and had once been an office building. Several small businesses had moved in and out of it during its lifetime, and recently it had sat empty for five years until some young, upstart developer got it into his head to turn the offices into efficiency apartments. A good idea on
the whole, but the rumor mill that always ran rampant through Gracechurch said he had skimped on the renovations and that maintenance on the building was a joke.
Calvin grabbed the radio mike again. “Engine 14 to Ladder 12 and Rescue 3: Football, Airborne—looks like we got us a three-story apartment building. You boys are gonna earn your paychecks tonight.”
“Rock on, Boss,” Curtis Edmonds replied from the rescue unit, a sentiment echoed moments later by Logan Kilbride. Their nicknames were references to their former careers—Curtis had played two seasons with the Washington Redskins before a knee injury had sidelined him permanently, and Logan was a former Army enlistee with the 101 Airborne Division.
“Alright, let’s rock and roll, boys,” Calvin said into the mike then as the Breckon Apartments building came into view down the street. The perimeter set up by the Gracechurch Police had pushed the looky-loos back a block, but Chris knew Calvin well enough that he’d request they be moved back another. Logan pulled Ladder 12 ahead of Engine 14, and as they were climbing out of the pumper, the first thing Calvin did was ask who the first cop on-scene was. When the officer identified herself, the fire captain then directed her to do precisely that—move the perimeter back another block. EMS units were arriving as well to see to the tenants who had evacuated.
Every man in the platoon donned their SCBAs, then Chris and Rick—the third man from the engine—hurried to set up hoses as Terry, who’d ridden with Football in the rescue unit, was sent on a perimeter run around the building. Rick would get started with the pumper’s onboard reservoir while he hooked another line to an outside water source, which he had spied and gave thanks for seconds after his feet had hit the ground—there was a hydrant on the corner across Main Street. He ran over to it now followed by Logan, who helped him hook the hose and then open the hydrant. They were running back to the truck to switch on the CAFS pump, listening to Calvin on the radio calling for assistance, when a piercing scream rent the air and a woman came running toward them, barreling past the two cops manning the sawhorse barricades.
“Jessica!” she screamed again, struggling madly even after Chris had grabbed hold of her.
“Whoa, calm down,” he said, keeping a firm grip on her arms. “Who is Jessica?”
“My daughter—she’s in there! I swear I wasn’t gone more than ten or fifteen minutes—I just ran to Speedway for a couple cold sodas for us. Jessica!”
Chris glanced at the apartment building. It was three stories tall with nine units—three on each floor. “What floor is your apartment on?” he asked the woman.
“The third floor—apartment 3C,” she said, tears pouring down her face. “She’s ten. I can leave her alone for short periods because I’ve taught her never to open the door for anyone, but she’s mildly autistic and when she gets scared she hides in her closet. She’ll die in there if we don’t get her!”
Chris looked at Logan, who nodded mutely and ran to join the others. He then turned and looked back at the cops at the barricade. He signaled to one, another female officer, and said a curt “Stay with her,” then released the frightened mother before running back over to join his team, passing Logan who was running another line to the hydrant with Rick; they were connecting the ladder truck to the water source as well. The ladder had a pump and hoses to aid in fire suppression, though not a compressed air foam system like the engine had.
Football and Terry were readying to enter the building, having pulled up their Nomex hoods and closing the faceplates of their masks. Calvin had taken the hose from Rick but when Chris stepped up to him he told him, “Take this, I’m going in.”
“Cal, you can’t be serious,” Chris said incredulously. “I can feel the heat from here—Football and Terry aren’t going to have much time as it is.”
“I put in a call to Alton and Summerford. They’re sending their pumpers and more men, and some of the crew from A and C are coming in, but right now we need as many guys to search for people trapped inside as we can get. Logan told me about the girl, and according to one of the other tenants, there’s an elderly couple on two who don’t move too well that aren’t out here.”
Chris took another look at the brick façade of the building as he reluctantly accepted the line, keeping it pointed upward. The fire appeared to have originated on the second floor as most of the visible flames were on that level, but whatever had started this blaze was strong—the first and third floors had quickly been engulfed. It was a strong accelerant that could spread fire this fast; the building had already reached the NWS point before the fire department had even arrived.
“Be careful, old man. This one’s not worth saving—and Tonja will have my ass if you get hurt,” Chris said at last. He knew that he should be the one going in, but Calvin was the man in charge and he’d already made up his mind.
“Yours and mine both, kid,” Calvin said tersely, though he smiled briefly at the mention of his fiancée. He listened with only half an ear as Cal then barked orders to Football and Terry to get the elderly couple on the second floor; he would get to the little girl on the third. He also heard Cal hollering at Logan about getting the ladder ready to receive them if it became necessary.
A feeling of unease settled in Chris’s stomach that he tried his damnedest to ignore. It wasn’t like him to experience doubt. To worry or be afraid. He’d been at this job too long to let those emotions get to him while he was on the scene of a call—there’d be time to decompress when it was over.
Nevertheless, even though he caught sight of Logan climbing the now-extended ladder—from which he knocked out a window and then turned on the nozzle to pour water on the fire from above—as Calvin, Football, and Terry entered the building, his stomach roiled. Something told him this was one of those calls that would not end well. And though in his youth on the Fort Peck Reservation he had done his best to ignore the beliefs of his people, it was his grandfather’s words of age-old wisdom that came to him now, the same ones that had finally beaten their way through his I-don’t-give-a-shit teenage hard-ass attitude:
“It is wise to listen when the spirits speak to you.”
The windows of one of the second floor apartments had blown out from the heat, scattering glass all over the sidewalk. Smoke poured from the openings, thick and black, choking the immediate airspace around the building. To his right, Rick coughed hard and slapped the faceplate of his mask shut to cut himself off from the acrid, nearly unbreathable air, but he held the water stream from the ladder truck’s hose steady next to his, both aimed at the second-story windows.
“We’ve reached the second floor,” Football’s voice came over the radio. “Captain’s heading up to three.”
“Roger that,” Chris replied tersely, thankful for the umpteenth time that Gracechurch’s Chief of Fire Operations had managed to get the department mask-mounted radios. He needed his hands free to control the line as well as the ability to talk to his men to run ground-ops, given that their unit commander was inside the burning building. Each man had a two-way analog radio as well, but the broadband transmitter/receivers fixed inside the frames of their masks were essential for hands-free operation, be it manning a hose or rescuing victims.
“On three—which is nearly as fucked up as two,” Calvin said then. “Get the vics and get out, boys.”
“Same to you, Boss,” Terry replied.
Tense minutes passed. Football relayed that he and Terry had located the elderly man and his wife in their bathroom; though they were mostly unhurt, the man had a burn on his left forearm and the woman’s gown was singed. Chris figured the man had hurt himself putting out the fire that had caught his wife’s dress alight.
He was getting worried about Calvin. The last he’d heard from the captain was a grunt and an announcement that he had he kicked apartment 3C’s door in. And then the sense of unease in his gut sent his stomach plummeting when a piercing whine blasted over the speaker in his mask, one not even the screaming sirens of the arriving engines from Alton and Summerford T
ownships could drown out—
—a PASS device sounding its alarm.
“Fuck!” he shouted. “Calvin, can you hear me? Captain Maynard, respond.”
A firefighter with Alton at the top of his helmet’s shield approached. “Where’s your ground commander?” the lieutenant asked.
“Inside—right now I’m in charge until the Marshal gets here,” he snapped as the lieutenant from Summerford came to stand next to the man from Alton. “Just get your hoses on those flames. We gotta keep this bitch from spreading to the neighboring buildings.”
The two men nodded and hurried to carry out the order. There was a McDonald’s to the right of the Breckon building separated from the apartments only by the restaurant’s small parking lot, and the dentist’s office to the north was separated by a wide alley. From his vantage point directly in front of the apartment building’s door, he could see that the burger joint had escaped damage thus far. The condition of the dentist’s office, from Terry’s earlier report, was the same, but Chris knew that could change in an instant. The Alton engine pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and the Summerford crew moved to attack the building from behind.
More men from the city’s A and C platoons arrived then, one of them taking the ladder truck’s line from Rick and another approaching him for Engine 14’s as Football and Terry were coming out the door. Their turnout coats were covered in soot and both men’s jackets bore scorch marks; Terry had the old man slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and Football had his wife cradled in his arms. The two were immediately passed off to EMTs, one of which, Chris noted with renewed dread, was Sam Temple, brother to one of the guys in C-Platoon. He cursed again. If Sam was here then so was Karalyn, his partner…
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