The Fire Club is a dangerously humorous journey with a regular crew
of irregular firefighters.
- Based on real events.
Rookie Captain Cole Walker had never been in charge of anything until he was plunked in command of an old firehouse and a crew of rebellious firefighters. Captain Walker must lead his misfit firefighters through situations he has never experienced before, risking his life, his firefighters and the people he came to save.
What happens behind the closed doors of the firehouse comes to light in The Fire Club.
-Based on real events
The Fire Club is available on Amazon
The Inside Perspective
In The Fire Club, there is only one lone firehouse in the small town of Brookfield. The city of Brookfield was modeled after my hometown of Lynwood, California. I spent my youth in this small town, which included attending the annual fire department open house. Later, at age 20, I was hired by the Lynwood Fire Department as a Firefighter Cadet. Lynwood Station One became the footprint for Brookfield Station One. Currently, it is Los Angeles County Fire Station 147.
In the opening chapter of The Fire Club the five-man crew responds to an early-morning attic fire in a single-family residence. The incident was spawn from a house fire I was on several years prior. I was the captain on Engine 84. The structure fire was early in the morning. It was in 134’s district, next to ours – we’d be second-in. When Engine 134 arrived on scene, the captain ordered his lone firefighter to advance an interior fire attack line, then he assumed Incident Command. Our assignment was to assist the Interior Fire Attack firefighter.
When we arrived on scene my firefighters pulled hose lines and followed me. I followed the one-and-three-quarter inch hose line to the back of the house. On our way across the front lawn, the Incident Commander grabbed my arm.
“My fireman’s in there alone,” he said. There was a hint of alarm in his voice, he emphasized alone.
We hastened our speed. Rounding the rear corner of the house we followed the hose line through the open sliding glass door. Surprisingly, the interior of the house was clear. The smoke level was about a foot below the ceiling. Just above our heads was an angry boiling black churning smoke layer. The house was hot. Too hot. My ears burned through my shroud. That is not a good sign.
“I can’t find the fire,” shouted the firefighter through his face mask. He was returning from down the hall. He was breathing deep.
“Shoot the ceiling,” I shouted through my face piece, and pointing up. I hoped my voice did not betray my alarm.
He pointed the nozzle into the smoke and shot a straight stream of water into the black abyss. A snapping and popping came back from the smoke, but it made no difference to the heat. In fact, the steam cloud that was generated pressed heat down on us. It felt like a huge broiler. I ordered all personnel to exit the building. Immediately!
We gathered in the backyard and looked at the big picture. The entire house was emitting smoke from under the roof eaves almost completely shrouding the roof in smoke. The soft edges of smoke rolling around the roof line gave the house a mushroom shape. Periodically, a red glow could be seen through the smoke outlining the clay roofing tiles. Within thirty seconds after we exited the structure, the roof collapsed.
Speechless
In Chapter 6, there is a scene where a husband and wife get in an argument. So, to exact revenge on his wife, he drinks bleach. Although the scene is gruesome, the part that is impressed most upon me was the after-the-incident aftermath. The man who drank bleach picked a busy night to visit the emergency room. After the man who drank bleach arrived at the hospital the team of doctors determined he was too chemically burned to save. They could only give him comfort drugs. Another unfortunate reality was that he wasn’t dead – yet. Since there were not enough rooms available for the sick people with a chance of surviving, the man who drank bleach sat on a portable bed in the hallway watching the world flit about him. He couldn’t talk. His vocal cords were gone. He simply, quietly sat on his portable bed and watched the world pass by as he slowly exsanguinated.
Each time I would return to the hospital with another patient, I would check on the man who drank bleach. When I originally left him, he was attentive, sitting up straight, and watching the various people walk past. On my second visit, he was not animated and appeared to be in a somber state of depression, probably reviewing past events and scrutinizing his recent actions. I could read in his expression that he wondered if his decisions had accomplished what he had hoped. With each return visit, I was reminded of the damage of rash decisions and the sensless waste of life.
On my third visit, the man who drank bleach sat slumped, not apparently interested in passersby. He no longer vomited. His color was ashen. On my fourth visit, the man who drank bleach wasn’t in the hall anymore. I guess they found a place for him.