Smoke Eaters...

9/11 Five Years Later:

I have always had a deep admiration and respect for firefighters and other members of the fire services. I have a first cousin that has served the better part of thirty years as a ‘smoke jumper' for the federal fire services fighting forest and wild fires out west. I was a bit older than he growing up and he thought I hung the moon. Now, I look on him as one of my personal heroes.

When I attended college at Western Kentucky, I received a minor in Fire Protection Technology. Subsequently, I served five years as a firefighter in the suburbs of a mid-sized city in a heavily industrial area surrounded by a lot of residential housing and commercial activities. We were in perpetual training for a lot of different scenarios. The fire services are one job that you can never second-guess. You never know what kind of call you are going to be knocked out on or when. It is impossible to specifically preplan for the majority of situations you will encounter. No matter how much or how hard you train and plan, Murphy will arrive before you do and toss all your good intentions out of the window.

In our case, county alarm would come over the squawk box with calls like, "report of a structure fire at…" or "report of an automobile accident at…" or "report of a hazardous material incident at…". My point being this, you didn’t know much when you rolled out of the firehouse about what you were about to encounter when you arrived at the scene. Was the report of a structure fire from someone that thought they smelled some wires burning somewhere in the building? Or was it rompin’ and had the building totally involved in fire and was coming through the roof. Was that automobile accident just a wash-off of leaked vehicle fluids on the road? Or was this an extrication of a dead or injured person from a vehicle or maybe a child trapped under a crumpled dashboard. A HazMat run may be a chlorine leak at the power plant requiring a mass evacuation of nearby residential areas or a puddle of mysterious liquid under a parked tractor trailer at a local truck stop that turns out to be molasses.

We averaged 2-3 runs a day, some days more, some days less. But the thing that always remained constant was the race we had to get our Bunker Coat and Turnout Pants on first and win the ride in one of the Jump Seats. That is where the action was; these were the firefighters that got on the nozzle and went inside. The others road the tail board and got to do exciting things like drag hose for you, ventilate the roof or snub the hydrant. I can still remember the excitement of rolling out of the house and listening to the speaker in the jump cab for word from the radio car that would arrive on the scene before us. We struggled to get Scott Air Packs on as we jostled down the road at 3 or 4 in the morning waiting to hear the words, "smoke showing" or "totally involved" before donning the masks. If it ended up to be a "working fire", you and the firefighter in the other Jump Seat would exchange knowing looks with one another that said, "I got your back." And then we would go to the point of entry and wait to be ordered in.

You never just rush into a burning structure. You need to wait for verification of several things. One being, that hazardous utilities have been shut off, primarily natural gas and electricity. Another being that ventilation has been completed if needed. The need for ventilation comes from the presence of super heated gases trapped in the structure that have not been burned due to the lack of oxygen available. Failure to remove these gases prior to entry can result in a backdraft explosion when a door or window is opened allowing a surge of oxygen to be sucked into the structure very quickly, igniting these gases spontaneously.

I don’t think a lot of people understand that you fight a fire from the inside out. You have to attack it at its seat. That is why firefighters go in instead of standing on the outside spraying water in through the windows. The science of the fire tetrahedron states that you must have four things in order for a fire to burn; fuel, ignition source, oxygen and a flame chain reaction. If you remove or stop any of those, then you will extinguish the fire. Firefighters on a hand line do not put out fires by cooling them down with water. They enter into the fire zone and spray the area with a foggy mist of water that is turned to steam and smothers the fire by displacing the oxygen in the area.

It is a very strange feeling to enter a burning structure. You and your back-up man crawl in on your hands and knees to stay low and out of the heat as much as possible. The room is totally blacked out, even in the middle of the day, by the smoke in it. You can’t see a hand in front of your face. If the fire has been burning a while and the room is really hot, you may even get down on your belly and crawl to escape more of the heat. The only part of your body that is not very well protected is your ears, and at times they feel like they are on fire and melting right on the side of your head. Walking forward on your elbows and pushing yourself along with your legs, you never let the nozzle leave your hands. You can feel the hand of your back-up man on your back, assuring you that he is with you as you inch forward. It is pretty much silent in there except for the hiss of your air packs as you labor on and the occasional crackle of the fire you seek to find. And then you see it. A very faint cherry red glow in front of you. This is what you were looking for. You open up the fog nozzle in your hands and make broad circular sweeps with it towards the glow and all around it. You hear the vapor from the nozzle sizzle as it becomes steam and you keep pouring it on until you are sure you have knocked it down. You can feel immediate relief as the room begins to cool a bit. After a bit, you may try to open the upper sash of a window, if one is available, to allow smoke to vacate the space you are in. By now the bells are probably ringing on your air packs and it is time for you and your back-up man to leave and your relief come in to standby in case the fire flashes up again. You turn and put your hand on the back-up man’s back and follow the hose line back out of the structure as your relief takes over the nozzle from you.

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Tonight I watched a documentary, " 9/11 ", a film about the Fire Department of New York. It was supposed to be a film about the nine months a rookie firefighter spends during his probationary period. The young subject of the film was named Tony and his story began in June 2001. Two young Frenchmen made the film; they happened to be brothers.

On September 11, 2001, the whole direction of the film was changed forever. The only footage taken inside the twin towers on that morning was that taken while making this film. It is perhaps the best and most moving documentary I have ever seen on any topic. I would recommend you put it on your ‘must see’ list. The essence of the horror of that morning is captured from the lobbies of the twin towers, all the way through the collapse of the second tower. If you want to see what true heroes look like, watch this film.

Like I said when I started this piece, I have a very special place in my heart for members of the Fire Services. We lost 343 of them that day in their line of duty to their fellow man. I will always remember them through the smoky gray dust of that day.

The film ended with a rendition of "Danny Boy" by the fine Irish tenor Ronan Tynan and I will as well. It has come to symbolize these men and women that gave their lives this day.

Danny Boy

Words and music: traditional

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen, and down the mountain side

The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying

'tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come you back when summer's in the meadow

Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow

'tis I'll be there in sunshine or in shadow

Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying

And I am dead, as dead I well may be

You'll come and find the place where I am lying

And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me

And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be

If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me

I simply sleep in peace until you come to me.