Fire then Ice

Last week Davey G sent me this picture of an "ice palace". It reminded me of the extreme differences firefighters sometimes face.

Most of us have memories of cold nights outside fire buildings we may have been in at the beginning of the night. The McGregor Building (see photo) in the mid-‘70s or the candle factory more recently are two that come to mind. (Not that I was at either of them. I’m too young for the McGregor building & wasn’t in the field for the candle factory.)

We had one such fire right after I was assigned to Six Engine.

The temperature was down to zero & the wind was blowing at 40 mph w/ gusts to 44. Wind chill was down around -53. Box 4316 came in, Sixteenth and Littleton. A box that had been infamous for decades.

Before we even rolled out of quarters the Deputy’s driver looked out the window at the top of the stairs & announced we had a job. When the overhead door went up, heavy smoke was blowing down Springfield Avenue. Six pulled up to people bailing out or hanging out of the windows of a four-story brick apartment building on the southeast corner.

After throwing a ladder up to get a woman out of the second-floor window, Kevin Killeen & I stretched a line into the foyer. The fire had control of the foyer, the hallway, & the stairs.

We kept it out of the first & second floor apartments, but it spread into one on the third floor as we pushed up the stairs. Before the night was through,

the fire had gone to three alarms.

Our captain, Jimmy Smith, had ridden the stairs from the fourth floor down to the second. And we were all covered in ice. The third tour relieved us there.

Personally, one reason I remember this fire so vividly is because it was my first real ice fire. I went home the following morning w/ my muscles aching from shivering & my neck & ears burned.

Welcome to winter firefighting.

I don't know how many guys told me they were putting their papers in because they didn't want to go through another winter.