Page 39 of Igniting Her

Cassie was out of the cab with her radio already raised. “Engine 12 on scene. Two-story residential, heavy smoke showing Division Two, fire visible Charlie side. Two occupants reported inside. Engine 12 establishing Harrow Command. Engine 12 Attack, Ridge and Jamie, stretch an inch-and-three-quarter to Division Two and protect the interior stairs. Engine 12 Search, Teak and Priya, primary search, priority rear bedroom. Mo, tank water and pump. Second-due establish supply. I want a ground ladder to the Charlie-side bedroom on arrival.”

Assignments turned the screaming man, the pushing smoke, and the flame at the rear window into work. Ellie pulled the line while Jamie cleared it from the bed. They masked at the front walk. Teak forced the door and controlled it against the fresh air behind them. Smoke rolled over their helmets the instant it opened.

“Attack ready,” Ellie called.

Cassie’s answer reached her through the radio. “Advance. Search is with you.”

Ellie went in low. The first floor was dark but tenable, heat layered above shoulder height. Family photographs lined the hallway in quick silver flashes from Ellie’s light: school portraits, a beach, three people grinning beside a crooked Christmas tree. The ordinary life of the house remained visible beneath what was happening to it. Ellie hated residential fires for that. Warehouses held inventory. Homes insisted on showing you exactly what could be lost.

The stairs rose on the right. Fire breathed orange at the top, disappeared, then returned. Ellie opened the nozzle in short pulses from the bottom step, cooling the gases overhead before she and Jamie began to climb. Teak and Priya followed inside the protection of the line, then peeled left when Priya’s thermal camera found a human shape on the floor beside the stairs.

“Search has one adult,” Teak called. “Female, breathing. Removing Alpha.”

The mother. One found. One still above them.

Ellie advanced another step. Water struck the upper hall and came back black along the walls. Jamie kept the hose moving behind her. The stairs turned at a half landing; above it, heat pressed through Ellie’s hood hard enough to register as pain.

“Harrow Command, Attack,” Ellie transmitted. “Fire in the rear half of Division Two, hallway involved. We’re advancing to protect the bedroom search.”

“Copy. Mother is out. Teenager remains unaccounted for. Second-due is ninety seconds.”

Ninety seconds was a long time in a hallway already changing color.

At the top landing, Ellie swept the ceiling, shut down, and listened. Fire cracked somewhere behind the right-hand wall. A smoke alarm shrieked from a room she could not see. Then, beneath both, came three dull strikes.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“I have sound rear left,” Ellie said.

Jamie heard it too. “Search is still resetting after the removal.”

Cassie had ordered them to protect the stairs and the search. She had also named life safety first and told them not to advance beyond the line. The charged line was in Ellie’s hands. Jamie was at her shoulder. The closed bedroom door at the end of the short hall was six feet beyond the place where fire rolled from a bathroom doorway on the right.

Technically, the bedroom remained inside the line’s protection.

Technically was a narrow word to crawl through.

Ellie opened the nozzle and drove water into the bathroom. Steam banked down. The orange folded out of sight. “We’re moving to the rear-left bedroom,” she called. Not asking. Reporting. “Possible victim.”

Static broke once. Then Cassie: “Copy. Search is coming back to you. Maintain crew integrity.”

Ellie advanced.

The bathroom fire was not out, only knocked back. It had already opened the ceiling above itself. Water ran through plaster in dark rivulets. Ellie kept the nozzle between them and the doorway while Jamie checked the bedroom door with a gloved hand.

“Cool at the bottom,” Jamie said. “Warm at the top.”

Another thud came from inside.

Ellie opened the door only wide enough to enter. Jamie followed with the line and pulled it nearly shut behind them, isolating the room from the hall. The temperature dropped at once. Smoke had collected beneath the ceiling but the lower half of the room remained visible in the sweep of Ellie’s light. A teenage girl lay beside the bed with a blanket wrapped over her head, one fist still closed around a metal water bottle.

Her eyes opened when Ellie touched her shoulder. “Fire department. We’ve got you.”

The girl coughed and tried to sit. “My mom.”

“She’s outside.” Ellie put the words close to the girl’s ear. “You’re going next.”

The interior route was possible. That didn’t make it best. The hall they had crossed was worsening, the fire between the bedroom and stairs, the ceiling already open. The Charlie window stood four feet from the girl, glass intact, with a clean patch of yard below. Cassie had ordered a ladder there before Ellie entered the house.