Echo Response for a Structure Fire.

September 30th, 2005

My alarm was set to wake me up at six o’clock in the morning so I could make my way to Seattle for work. Three minutes before my alarm clock went off I head the tones on my pager. It was for an Echo Response for a Structure Fire with someone still inside. I looked at my watch and saw it was still in my response time that I had to go. I threw on my boots and made my way to the station.

When I got there I said “What is up with all the five-fifty-five in the morning calls?” A few seconds later Shane came in and said the exact same thing. We got loaded in Rescue and went en route. On the way we were told it was a working structure fire. It was funny because when I got my new turnout pants on Sunday, Van Ness said that I was jinxing us and that we were going to get a structure fire now. And through out the week, during the “five-fifty-five” in the morning calls they all were fire related, each one more progressively worse. Starting with a fire alarm. Then a small fire at Dissmores and finally this big one.

We got on scene and I got my gear on and headed to the fire which was a little bit up the road. When we got there Turpin said that Brian and I are the back up team. He wanted us to pull a line and get to the door with it. We stood by as Tref was making his way out. Then I got paired up with Shane as Tref and Brain went inside to fight the fire. There was thick black smoke rolling out the door. We got on our knees and went about five feet inside the building waiting just incase we were needed for help. After being in there for a brief period of time everyone was called out because they were going to do some ventilation and get some of the smoke and heat out of the house. Then I was pulled away from backup duty to be on the RIT team.

The RIT team is the team of fire fighters who on a moments notice will get into the building and rescue people. Luckily we were not needed. We stood by the RIT gear near the house for the remainder of the fire. More crews came on the other apparatus. We also called in District Twelve to help us out. In all we were on scene for about two hours. Then I got back to the office. I got my stuff and headed back to Seattle to work. I did not get back here until almost two in the afternoon.

But It was a good day. Ricky and I spent time figuring out why there were some bugs in the code. He was helping me do things I did not have the computer access to be able to do myself. We got some of the problems discovered. Now we just need to pin point the exact problem and then fix it.

I left around nine o’clock pm to go to the monthly poker game at Newport Shores. We were playing in a house that is on Lake Washington. It is a multi-million dollar house. They had two boats parked out back on their dock. One was a nineteen foot run-about and the other was a larger cruising boat. It was amazing to see all the boats and the size of them that people had down there. I played for a couple hours and only won one hand. It was not a good night, but I only lost thirty bucks.


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