The DOT Fire

When I first joined the Wales Fire Department in August of 2020, there were already two other junior firefighters. Jr Theriault and Jr Beaule, both have or had family that is in a fire department so they knew what they were getting into. Where I was a first-generation firefighter I had no clue of what I was getting into. I did not know that when you go to big calls such as structure fires you will be assigned a task to do and they expect you to get the task done within a reasonable amount of time. I did not know what I was getting myself into all the training I was going to have to do.

In the time of a year, I was able to make a truck to respond to a big structure fire in the town of Litchfield. Not knowing what structure it was Firefighter Dobson, Firefighter Beaule, Jr Beaule, and myself all got in Forestry 35, and were thinking we were just gonna be manpower and would use tools off Engine 31 that already responded. When we got halfway to the call one of our phones got service back, where are station is it is a big cellular dead zone so no one’s phone was working. So we looked up the address it was one of the garages at the DOT station by the highway in Litchfield. We soon knew that we had made the mistake of taking Forestry 35 instead of our other Engine 32. But we were already close to the point where we could see the glow of the fire. So we continued to the scene under-equipped.

When we got there I was at least 200 feet from the fire and could feel the heat as if it was a hair dryer that was held 6 inches from me. When I went up to my chief to see what he needed he told me to go find a t New hook at least 8 ft long or a similar tool. So I went and felt alone by myself opening up random compartments on trucks that were from departments that I did not belong to. I felt important but I was standing alone because the other Jr did not think it was an important job. What I learned from this time of standing alone is that no job is more important to you than the job you are assigned. When I found the tool that was needed I got it from Monmouth Engine 83 I got it to my Chief Siderio. Then I was reassigned to set up rehab for the Wales crew even though Litchfield had already set up rehab for the whole scene. Once again the SFD was last to arrive and the first one to leave I would never have guessed the stress of not knowing fully what I was trying to do that day. In the end, all units cleared the scene around 11:30 pm and Litchfield had to go back in the morning to clean up hot spots, we were there from 7:31 pm to 11:20 pm

“Warehouse fire” by kryshen is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.