Cherry - S01 E57

Story 1 year ago

Cherry - S01 E57

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 57

Brian was the nozzle man and he opened the bale to start fighting the fire. We got low to the floor to dodge the sudden rise in temperature. Most people don't realize that it actually gets hotter inside a building when you start putting water on the fire. The heat flushes out along the ceiling and hits you right in the face if you are standing up and, even with the air pack on, it's suffocating! But If you get low, the heat just rolls along the ceiling-passing over you.

What happened next occurred so fast, I couldn't say what happened first. There was a whistling sound that first thought was the wind coming through the open window. But the pitch began increasing rapidly until I couldn't really hear it anymore. The fire in the kitchen suddenly shot up like a laser to the ceiling and it sounded like a small bomb went off on the floor below us.

Something was wrong and I could feel it. I looked through my fire finder and was astonished at what I saw. The screen was mostly white from the heat and there was flame spewing out from behind the stove like it was under pressure.

I keyed my radio and yelled, "Are you sure the gas main is off?! I got flame shooting out from the walls in here!"

I looked again in my fire finder while waiting for a response and couldn't believe what I saw. Right in the middle of all that white was a black area about four and a half feet tall. Having black on my screen made no sense because black indicates a cool spot. As my mind tried to wrap around it, I suddenly recognized a clear shape-it was Katie. She stood rigid with her arm extended out straight, her finger pointing the way out while she was screaming and all I could hear was the whistle of escaping gas. I saw her mouth clearly form the words 'GET OUT!' as jet black tears flowed down the cheeks of her panic stricken face. The sound of creaking wood filled the room.

I dropped the fire finder and grabbed the handle on Brian's pack, pulling him backwards while shoving Garry (who was behind me), yelling. "OUT! EVERYONE GET THE FUCK OUT!"

Brian and Garry simultaneously asked, "What the fuck?!' while trying to retreat with the hose. I yelled, "LEAVE IT! RUN!!!"

Brian instinctively threw the lever on the bale forward; killing the water flow from the hose. They did as I 'suggested' and we all ran for the door. The moment we cleared the doorway, the entire roof collapsed in a massive pile of burning debris on top of where we had been fighting the fire. The gas main had not been secured after all and was super-fuelling the fire, burning through the roof far too quickly. The apartments were constructed of what is known as light wood. It's a cheap building material that just crumbles easily when it burns. Who ever gave the 'ok' to use it for an apartment should be in prison: the only thing it's good for is a bonfire in my opinion. Moments after the roof came down the floor fell through, too. We made a hasty retreat from the apartment which was now fully out of control.

We regrouped outside and Chief asked, "What the hell happened in there?"

He already knew what happened, of course. But I answered anyway, "Gas is still on. Roof and floor caved in." Chief replied as calmly as he could, "No shit," but I could see he was pissed and wanted to find the guy that said the gas was off. But now was not the time, there was still a lot of work to do...

Before the fire was out, three more stations were called in to help get control. It should have been a simple call out, but because of shitty (no other word is appropriate in this case) building materials and equally lacking quality of knowledge on how to turn off the gas main, nearly 30 families lost everything and were homeless by dinner time. Thankfully, no one was injured in the calamity but, for certain, there would have been three deaths if not for Katie. Surviving that collapse would have been impossible.

By the time I got home that night, the story had already been the lead story on the evening news. I called her to tell her what was going on, that I'd be late and not to worry. But she stayed up anyway. And, even though I had a shower at the station house, she still noticed the smell of smoke on me. I went to get a second shower so she wouldn't have to smell smoke all night long, she joined me.

Standing under the hot water, Cherry just wanted to hold on to me for a while, her head resting on my chest. Eventually she grabbed the body wash and gently began soaping me up so I did the same for her in return. When we finished washing, Cherry finally asked about my day.

She said quietly, "Something is bothering you; I can tell. Is it about the fire today? Was it bad?"

I answered, "It had the potential of being bad. But no one got hurt so it wasn't that bad."

Cherry thought for a second and said, "You don't want to tell me. Do you?"

I let out a deep sigh and said, "It's not that I don't want to tell you;