Page 94 of Shared By the Firemen

“Proceed with caution, engine twelve. The fire’s spreading in that direction, although it’s three floors up.”

“Might have already spread to the second floor, sir.”

“Copy. I see the window now. Engine twelve, you’re clear to proceed with hose support.”

And then I heard Liam’s voice: “Engine five team entering through the fifth-floor window.” He was speaking on my behalf.

“Watch your footing, engine five. That fire’s been raging too long already.”

The window wouldn’t open, so I used my ax to smash the glass. I turned away as I did; the rush of fresh oxygen increased the risk of a backdraft. When no new flames poured out of the window, I used the handle of my ax to clear away the glass from the pane and stepped inside.

I was inside the kitchen of an apartment. A bowl of salad stood on the counter next to an unopened bottle of dressing; the occupants had been interrupted preparing for dinner. There were no direct flames visible here, but tendrils of grey smoke rose up the walls, driven from the floor below. I gave the ground a heavy stomp. It held firm.

“FIRE DEPARTMENT!” I bellowed. “IS ANYONE INSIDE!”

There was no response, so I trudged deeper into the building. A timer was ticking in my head, like the fuse on a bomb. It was impossible to know for sure, but I estimated that I had five safe minutes. Maybe ten. The flow of the apartment was clear, and I found the front door easily. There was no glow underneath the door, so I opened it carefully, then threw it open further when there was no backdraft.

The hallway was filled with more smoke than the apartment where I had entered. To my left, at the end of the hall, it was billowing up out of an open door. That was probably the stairwell.

“FIRE DEPARTMENT!” I yelled again. “SHOUT IF YOU CAN HEAR ME!”

There came a muted response in the direction of the stairwell. The hall must have turned around a corner down there, because a woman suddenly appeared, crouching low and holding a cloth to her face. Others followed close behind—four, five, six people. One was a little girl, wailing in terror.

“There’s a ladder in the kitchen window,” I said, holding open the apartment door for them. Then, into my radio, I said, “Engine five. I’ve got six civilians coming out.”

“Copy. Sending someone to assist with their extraction.”

I grabbed the last man in the group. “Is anyone else inside?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, pausing to cough. “I think?”

“Mrs. Franklin!” a woman shouted urgently. “Apartment 514. I don’t know if she’s home, but she’s in a wheelchair.”

I directed them to the kitchen window, then hurried down the hall to the right, in the opposite direction of the stairwell. Apartment 502. Apartment 504. Apartment 506. I rounded a corner and found it. Not wanting to waste any more time, I lifted my boot and kicked as hard as I could against the door, aiming at the spot by the lock. Pain shot up my knee, but the door remained intact. I kicked again, and again, and on the fourth try the wood broke open in a spray of splinters, and the door swung open.

There was more smoke in here than the other rooms, though no direct fire that I could see. Movement caught my eye—a hand waving at me. I neared and found a woman in a wheelchair. She was wearing a robe, but nothing else.

“Mrs. Franklin?” I demanded.

“I… was in… the bath,” she said, wheezing horribly.

I hooked my ax to my belt and lifted her out of the wheelchair. “Anyone else inside?”

“No one,” she said, before succumbing to a fit of coughs.

With her thrown over my shoulder, I retraced my steps out of the apartment. Down the hall. There were direct flames down near the stairwell now, casting a hellish orange glow through all the smoke. I carried her into the apartment where I had entered. The last man from the first group was stepping through the window, helped by a firefighter on the other side.

“Do you know if anyone else is inside?” I asked Mrs. Franklin.

She tried to say something, but began coughing violently. She shook her head through the coughs.

I handed her off to my colleague on the ladder, then turned to look back inside. I wanted to keep searching, to bang on doors and make sure nobody was trapped. But the glow in the hallway was brighter now, and I knew I didn’t have the time. If I went back out into the hallway, the fire might spread and I would get cut off from my exit.

“Let’s get out of here,” said the person on the ladder over the radio. It was Ellen. “It’s getting dangerous.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said. I had done all that I could.

I took a step toward the window.