Page 36 of Until We Come Home

Everything shifts into high gear the second those words hit the air. Rebecca’s out of the office before the address even finishes, James is already sliding behind the wheel, and Callum and I are pulling on our turnout gear by the engine door. Pants, boots, coat, hood, and helmet going on in a few quick motions, the same forty-five pounds I’ve put on a thousand times.

Ollie comes sprinting around the corner from the dayroom, struggling with his sleeves, and Callum reaches out from the crew cab and hauls him up into the seat beside him.

“Ollie, you’re on the hydrant with James,” Rebecca orders, adjusting her headset. “You do not cross that threshold under any circumstances. Mateo, Callum, you’re on the primary line.”

“Got it,” I say, and the engine surges out of the bay into the warm afternoon air.

It’s been eighty degrees for a week straight and the whole area is bone dry. A thick, dark column of smoke is already churning up over the tree line ahead, drifting fast against the clear sky. James navigates the heavy rig smoothly, the siren cutting through the afternoon traffic as we push through the intersections.

Rebecca keys her radio mic to dispatch and incoming units. “Engine 7 is two blocks out, heavy black smoke showing. Engine 4, what’s your ETA?”

“Engine 4, five minutes out,” the static-filled response returns.

I glance at my air gauge, sitting full, and leave my facepiece hanging at my chest. It stays off until we’re going in. Beside me, Callum’s knee twitches as he double-checks his regulator. Across the cab, Ollie sits strapped into his seat with both hands gripped tightly on his knees, staring wide-eyed at the dark plume rising over the rooftops.

He’s had a solid summer so far—plenty of brush fires, endless medical runs—and he’s kept his cool every time. But a working fire with someone trapped inside is a different beast entirely, and I can see the reality of it setting in.

“Hey,” I say, getting his attention. “The hydrant is the whole foundation. If you don’t get us water, we can’t make an entry, and the tank on this rig only lasts about a minute once James opens up. Wrap that hydrant, get the line hooked up, and open it the second he gives you the signal. That’s your focus.”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice cracking before he clears his throat and nods. “Yeah. Got it.”

I recognize that look. I remember my own first working fire back in Boston, that clench in the gut while waiting to see how you’ll hold up when it gets real.

“Hydrant’s right on the corner of 98th,” James calls out over his shoulder. “I’m dropping you there first. Wrap it, and I’ll lay the line in to the house.”

He brakes hard at the corner, just long enough for Ollie to jump down with the end of the supply line and loop it around the hydrant, and then we’re rolling again with the big hose paying out off the back of the rig behind us. Ollie stays where we left him. The house is half a block down.

It comes into view fast, a tan two-story home with a covered front porch, and it’s in way fucking worse shape than the initial dispatch suggested.

The second-story windows on the right side are blackened, the glass heat-stressed and spiderwebbed, with dark, pressurized smoke boiling out from the edges and rolling up into the eaves. The small window right above the entry door glows a bright, ugly orange. Only the one upper window on the far left side remains somewhat clear.

A frantic woman stands near the curb, holding a dog and crying hysterically while a neighbor tries to keep her back on the sidewalk. James brings the rig to a hard stop past the front gate, leaving room for the ladder truck, and pulls the air brake.

Rebecca steps out of the cab before the suspension even settles. She takes one look at the second story, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. The room’s about to go up, and it’s showing all the signs.

A flashover.

It’s what happens when everything in a room gets so hot that it all catches fire at the same time. Smoke is fuel, unburned stuff that hasn’t caught yet, and as the room heats up the couch and the carpet and the curtains all start giving off more of it until the whole space is packed with it. Once it gets hot enough, everything goes at once, floor to ceiling, in about a second. Nobody survives it, not even in full gear.

The warning sign is exactly what’s coming out of those windows. Thick black smoke, shoving out under pressure, means the room is full of fuel and almost hot enough to light it. This house is about to go.

“Engine 7 on scene,” she reports into her shoulder mic. “Two-story residential, heavy black smoke under pressure from the second floor, front right, working fire in the stairwell. Engine 7 establishing command. Conditions indicate imminent flashover. We are making an exterior knockdown first.” She steps toward us, raising her voice over the idle of the diesel engine. “James! Get the deck gun up and put water through that right upper window. Knock it down! Callum, stretch a line to the yard. Nobody makes entry until we hit this from the outside.”

The deck gun is the big mounted nozzle on top of the rig. From the street it can throw five hundred gallons a minute or more straight through a window, enough to beat a fire back and buy time before anyone goes inside. The catch is that it drains our tank in about sixty seconds, which is why Ollie and that hydrant matter more than anything else happening right now.

James is already at the pump panel, hooking up the supply line and sending tank water to the deck gun, and half a block back Ollie is cranking the hydrant open. Callum drags the attack line across the lawn, and I grab the second fold while Rebecca moves toward the woman at the curb.

“Ma’am, is there anyone still in the house?”

“My dad!” the woman sobs, clutching the dog to her chest. “He’s upstairs! Front left bedroom. He uses a walker, he can’t make it down the stairs alone, and he was sleeping! The whole hallway was full of fire, I couldn’t reach him!”

Rebecca catches my eye, and her expression is probably a match for mine. Fuck. Someone inside when a room is about to flash is about as bad as it gets. We can’t fucking go in through that hallway, and there’s no guarantee the water cools the place down fast enough to get him out.

“What’s his name?” Rebecca asks, keeping her tone steady and firm to cut through the panic.

“Frank! His name is Frank!” she screams, shaking with tears.

Rebecca glances back at the second story, then at me. She knows what protocol demands, and she knows I’m not about to sit around and wait for it.