Luke
Atall woman with ass-length white, blonde hair enters the firehouse and makes a beeline to the Captain's office. Her ass swings back and forth despite her skin tight jeans, and I can’t help but stare.
My neck is craned so far trying to catch another glimpse of her, that even the Captain notices. He starts up a deep chuckle.
“Hey Burrows- keep your eyes off my little girl, will ya?” he jokes, continuing to chuckle.
Despite his joking tone and the fact that he’s laughing- as he closes the door behind his daughter, he catches my eye, and I can tell how serious he actually is. Looks like I better watch where my gaze lands.
I plan to linger around, waiting for his daughter to come back out so that I can introduce myself- but within thirty seconds, the fire bell goes off, and we’re all on the move. I barely have any time to curse the bell as I jump into my gear, and we head out.
I take the fire engine today and Isaac takes the aid car.
“What do we got, Lieutenant?” Joe, my newest firefighter asks.
“So today we’ve got a fire in an old warehouse. It’s right out on the outskirts of our territory, so there may be some help from station 9. Now this here is important, so listen up, you’ll need this information in the future. The bad thing about warehouse fires is that they often contain flammable items. Obviously, this will cause the fire to spread not only larger but quicker, which makes our job harder. But that’s not even the worst part. Sometimes there are drug users and homeless people in old warehouses like this. You should nevereverassume a place is abandoned just because it’s old or rundown.Alwaysassume there are people or animals inside, until proven otherwise. No matter what their situation- we don’t judge. We never judge. No one deserves to die that way, no matter their situation.”
“Heard, Lieutenant. Thank you.”
“You’re a good egg Joe. This may be your biggest fire yet- we’ll see. I’ll be watching to see how you handle this one, so I can further assess what training you need. When we arrive, you’re going to be in charge of setting up the hose. This will be your first time doing so, so listen up. Before setting it up- you need to make sure you block off the surrounding area. If someone drives over our hose, it will pop, and we will have to do it all over again. Obviously, we don’t need that happening. I also want you to listen very closely to your walkie for any orders from either me or Isaac.”
“Heard, Captain. I’m ready.”
“You better be, we’re almost there!”
If there’s one thing about me- it’s that I’m dead serious about my job. I may be immature or cocky outside of the job, going out to clubs and picking up all the ladies- but when I’m in my gear, everything changes.
At work, I am mature, focused, and determined- andnothingcan get in my way.
In the next sixty seconds, we arrive on the scene. The fire isn’t too large at the moment, but I can tell by the flames that if we don’t get in there very soon- it will become a monstrosity.
My crew and I hop out of the engine, and everyone gets to work. We all have specific jobs, and everyone knows exactly what they’re doing. It is crucial that your team is organized before arriving on the scene in order for everything to run smoothly and effectively.
The aid car arrives just seconds after us, and they await word from us as we make sure the warehouse is all clear- meaning no living beings inside. It takes a minute for us to safely sweep the place, but soon we are yelling the all clear and running outside to begin fighting this fire.
Despite there being no civilians inside for them to treat, the aid car sticks around. The reason for this is because firefighters are always getting injured- and we always need the aid car around to check everyone’s lungs for smoke inhalation. It’s one of the most important parts of the job- especially since without any healthy firefighters- there would be no one to do this job.
Soon we have put the fire out and are heading back to the station. As soon as we arrive, the fire marshal is there waiting for us. He calls us into our conference room, and we all await to hear what he is going to say to us.
“Unfortunately, I have some bad news for everyone today. Once again, we have another arson on our hands. This is the third one this year. But there is something special about the arsons we have been experiencing. The arsonist has been setting these fires in such a way that they will be long gone before the fire even blows up.”
Allow murmur begins in the conference room.
“This means exactly what you are probably thinking. And if you’re lost, let me explain. Usually, fires set in this manner are set by firefighters themselves. Whether that means a current firefighter or a former firefighter, we don’t know yet. But the reason I am telling you this is because we need to beextracautious when arriving on these scenes. We don’t know the motive of this arsonist. They may be wanting to harm one of us. They may be doing this for a much larger reason. So not only do you need to look out for your safety along with your teams safety- but you also need to pay extra attention to anything on the scene that may be just a bit odd. Anything out of the ordinary. Make sense?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Okay, then y’all are dismissed. Your Lieutenants can give you further information about this. Just remember how very, very serious this is. We don’t know who we’re dealing with.”
As we leave the conference room, I peek around at my fellow firefighters. A small part of me wonders if maybe one of them might be the arsonist. And that thought scares me even more than Captain Martin catching me staring at his daughter's ass again.