A Fire Chief's Story

Introduction

At about 5:00 a.m. on a cold dark November morning, the home receivers alerted the fire department for an alarm of fire on Bernhardt Drive.  I responded in the chief’s car and arrived on the scene very quickly.  The houses on Bernhardt were generally a story-and-a-half wood frame cape cod style homes. They were about 20 feet apart separated by a driveway.  I saw a fully involved travel trailer about 25 feet long backed into the driveway between two of these homes.  There were flames coming out of every window and the roof was partly melted away.  I pulled across the street from the fire to get out of the way of the incoming equipment that would include three pumping engines, an aerial ladder and a heavy rescue truck.  I radioed the alarm office to put the call over the home receivers again as a working fire and proceeded to put on my turnout gear.  I remember getting into my boots that felt very cold as they were in the trunk of my car.  In the process of shedding my fire jacket and putting on the cold fire coat, I heard a very loud explosion followed by a blinding light.  I turned around and saw the two propane tanks, which were carried on the front trailer hitch, had exploded.  Fire was everywhere; the trailer and both homes were ablaze.  Again, I radioed the alarm office to request a second alarm that would bring two additional engines and manpower from a neighboring fire department.  We could handle one house fire but two and a trailer were a bit too much.

            When engine #5 arrived, flames were crawling up the walls of both houses.   They were ordered to advance hose lines on both of these houses and one on the trailer in an effort to knock down this raging fire.  We tried to get at least one additional line into each house in an effort to stop the fire from spreading inside.  It had gotten into the homes through the shattered windows on the walls closest to the main fire.  Engine #3 laid a supply line to the hydrant and I ordered the ladder to set up on Bernhardt in front of the main fire.  This would enable the ladder to pour heavy water on all three burning structures if the fire could not be contained.  Engine #4 was to get water supplied to the ladder.

When the two engines from Eggertsville arrived, they were requested to help with the inside attack on the burning houses.  The trailer fire was knocked down quickly as it was mostly consumed before we got there.  The inside attacks on the houses went very well and the damage to the inside was held to the rooms where the flames had gotten into the windows.  It was brought under control in short order, thereby avoiding a conflagration.  The exhausting work of overhauling took several hours and the damage was extensive.  The outside of these buildings was very heavily damaged and would require extensive repair.  It could have been a lot worse if these firemen had advanced the hose to the trailer before the propane tanks exploded.  Several of them could have been severely burned or worse, killed.

What makes a volunteer get out of a warm bed in the middle of winter or a driving rain storm and risk injury or death to save a person he does not know or to fight a fire in a building that he has no interest in?  What makes them put in hundreds of hours of hard and sweaty work hauling hose, lifting ladders and cleaning a dirty fire station that is not his?   What makes this same person spend hundred of hours training in an avocation for which they receive no remuneration?

The Amherst Fire Council held an annual memorial communion breakfast to recognize deceased firemen.  The guest speaker one year was Monsignor John McMahan who referred to volunteer firemen as, “magnanimous”.  He said the word comes from the Latin words, “Magnus” meaning great, and “animus” meaning soul.  He went on to say that they are noble and give freely and unselfishly to others.

I hope that this book will give the reader some insight into what makes a volunteer fireman.