Sunday Afternoon Call

At church yesterday I was having a reminiscent moment talking with a young man who had spoken in our worship service.  He had served his mission in California, the same mission I was called to 20 years ago.  We were talking about how the mission had changed it's boundaries since I was there, etc., when among the sound of conversation from us and many others in the chapel, I keyed into the too familiar sound of my pager.

I have two alert sounds programmed into my pager.  If it's a fire it alerts me with one pattern, if it's a medical call it alerts with a different sounding pattern.  I've commented before on how I still get a bit of an adrenalin rush when the tones for fire sound from my pager, yesterday was no different.

After the tone alert is finished, it transmits the voice information from dispatch - what units respond, address, type of call, etc.  While I was walking out of the chapel trying to hear what voice information was being received and not having much luck, it did nothing to settle my anticipation of what we would face in a few minutes time.

I was finally outside and was able to play back the recorded message from my pager.  "Tender call for a structure fire", just down the road in Petersboro.  I responded to the station and we prepared a crew to send in one of our tenders for the water supply needs at this fire in a a non-hydrant area of Cache County.

After managing a bit of a mechanical issue, our tender pulled out and I followed along behind  the tender crew as the department officer responding.

It's always a grim feeling when a house is involved.  We had about 6 miles of road to travel before arriving on scene, and being in a wide open space of Cache Valley, we were able to see the structure miles in advance.  It was good to see less smoke coming up than what was visible when I was driving to the station, but it can be a hollow victory.

It really doesn't matter who's home it is, a fire in a a home is a terrible thing, but I believe it's a bit harder to take as a firefighter if you  know the owners.

To realize who's home it was, and that they had within the last 4-5 months finished it's construction and went from living a couple of blocks away from us in Newton to this new home in Petersboro, was one of those moments in firefighting that you don't want to experience.

Our part of the response was short lived.  Discovering a fire before it is too far advanced is always helpful, and coupled with the automatic aid agreements between the valley fire departments, the quick response saved a lot of the house and hopefully it will be as easy as possible to return it to its former condition as quick as possible.