Firefighters Enter the Inferno: ‘Sometimes You See Bad Things’

by Martin Kufus

An excerpt from Plow the Dirt but Watch the Sky, by Martin Kufus

Anyone who serves as a volunteer firefighter eventually will confront bad things, perhaps receiving a heartfelt “Thank you” later in compensation. This is what you sign up for and train for on a volunteer fire department (VFD). It was 1999 or 2000, an innocent time before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Back then, the American public generally took first responders for granted or, at least, many of us saw it that way. Still, calls for help were answered. 

The pocket-sized Motorola ‘Minitor’ VFD pager/radio receiver sat silently in its charger in the living room of my small rental house … until it shattered the morning silence with an electronic scream. The south Texas sun had just risen. The Motorola blared distinctive tones, then a county 9-1-1 dispatcher announced, “Floresville fire department, Floresville fire department, you are needed for a house fire, reported by the public, southeast of town on County Road…” 

Jolted awake, I rolled out of bed to pull on some Wrangler jeans and a blue, VFD T-shirt—cotton, not synthetic, insulates best under the flame-resistant layers of ‘bunker gear’—and then stepped into socks and Tony Lama boots. As I drove the few blocks to the fire station, I wished I had had time for a cup of coffee. Still, adrenaline would take the place of caffeine soon enough. 

Plow the Dirt but Watch the Sky is available here.

The first to arrive at the station, I ran to the front door and unlocked it. Inside, I poked three of the five red buttons on a wall-mounted panel. One overhead door noisily rose for exit by our smaller Pierce pumper truck, known as Engine 1. The second door opened for a brush truck: a hand-me-down, military deuce and a half repurposed with a 1,000-gallon water tank, auxiliary generator, water pump, front- and side-mounted hoses and nozzles, and a coat of red paint. If needed—and if the house fire was within municipal limits—the incident commander, the senior firefighter on scene, could radio for more personnel to roll Engine 2, the newest and largest truck: a Pierce pumper with a 1,000-gallon water tank and extended crew cab. 

READ MORE from Martin Kufus: ‘G is For Gonzo’: A Slice From an Editor’s Life at Soldier of Fortune

In the dressing area at the back of the building, I yanked off my cowboy boots, worked a nylon knee brace up each pant leg, and stepped into my heavy fire boots; the thickly insulated trousers already were pushed down around the tall boots to save time. I stood up with the red suspenders over my shoulders and, lastly, buckled the protective garment around my waist. I stuck my arms in the matching coat, which reeked of old smoke and sweat, then took my yellow helmet with full face shield off its hook on the wall.

Others had arrived. I climbed into the cab of the red truck followed by another guy half my age in his bunker gear. The driver started the big diesel engine and reached for the radio handset. 

“Wilson County, this is Floresville Engine 1,” he said. “We are 10–8, 10–17 to the house fire. Over.” 

Intermediate VFD training at Texas A&M, July 2000; author is tallest figure at far left. 

The truck’s emergency lights flashed and siren blared as we rolled out of the station. Not far behind, the brush truck’s driver and two more bunkered-up firefighters radioed their numerical in-service–en-route report as the workhorse truck left the station with a roar and belch of diesel exhaust. Its large water tank might have to supply Engine 1, which carried only 500 gallons for start-up, if the fire was not close to a functioning fire hydrant—in which case the incident commander likely would radio for another brush truck and its 1,000 gallons. Additionally, standard operating procedure required that a volunteer-EMS vehicle and crew join us at the scene. 

Surprises can kill, so we never rushed into the fire. A burning house might conceal occupants still alive but overcome by smoke and heat; also, firefighters making an interior attack, breathing from self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) air packs, and dragging a fire hose, would face not only flames, heat, and toxic smoke but the outside chance of a roof or wall collapse. Adding to the risks, overexerted firefighters can succumb to heat exhaustion—precursor to heat stroke—in the sauna inside their heavy fire suits, especially in summer. Worst case, the EMS crew might have their latex-gloved hands full with casualties. The VFD would have to divide its focus and establish a “hasty LZ” for an AirLife helicopter to medevac the severely injured—requiring treatment beyond the capability of Wilson County’s nearby hospital—to a Level 1 trauma–burn center 30 miles away in San Antonio.   

Engine 1 neared the turn onto the hard-packed county road. I pulled my Nomex hood, also smelling of smoke and dried sweat, over my head and down around my neck, then finished buckling my coat. Ahead, a solid line of black smoke—a sign of manmade materials, not grass and brush, burning—rose above our destination. It was a ranch-style home: a one-story, rectangular red-brick structure with a two-car garage on one end, probably opening to laundry and half-bath rooms, then the kitchen and living room, and on the opposite end a guest bedroom and bathroom and the master suite. It sat on a large open-spaced lot. Engine 1 entered the property. Our driver braked to a halt and reached for the radio handset to report our arrival. The other two of us piled out. 

A VFD captain, Lorenzo Ortiz, pulled in behind us in a company pickup truck. He beat feet around the house for a ‘size-up,’ determining, for example, there was no propane tank sitting beside the burning structure. The fire was in the garage moving slowly inward; it had not punched through the roof yet. We pulled hoses off the trucks and quickly walked the nozzles to the assigned spots around the house. Meanwhile, the two drivers, who were not in bunker gear, stood beside their trucks and started the water pumps, manipulated valves, watched gauges indicating water pressure and available gallons, and monitored radio traffic.

Three hoses would put wet stuff on the red stuff. From the outside, through a broken garage window, one nozzle would create a cone/fog pattern, a barrier of water droplets halting or at least slowing the fire’s advance toward the unburned majority of the house. A second firefighter, also using 2 ½-inch-diameter line, would stand by at the other end of the house, ready to saturate the bedroom area with water fog—but not opening or breaking a window until the right moment lest this create a full-length air current sucking fire and smoke farther into the structure. A team in SCBA would pull a 1 ¾-inch-diameter line inside through the front door, first looking for any occupants to remove and hand off to EMS and then attacking the fire from the middle of the house. 

A side compartment on Engine 1 held a rack of yellow Dräger air tanks on shoulder harnesses and a row of full-face air masks. I took one of each. I had worn SCBA in interior attacks only a few times before, but Texas A&M University’s fire-training extension program had given me a good foundation in the tactic. Gripping the SCBA’s rigid back frame with both hands, I raised the tank over my head and onto my shoulders and back, bending at the waist as I stuck my arms through the shoulder straps and tightened. 

Standing upright, I fastened the waist belt. Next, I donned the air mask and tightened its straps across the back of my head; with both hands I checked the rubber seal around my face for air leaks. (I did not have a beard for that reason.) The Nomex hood around my neck now was stretched up and over my head and ears, leaving only the SCBA’s gargoyle face exposed. I put on my helmet, tightened the chinstrap, and stuck each hand into a thick glove. All of that probably took just under a minute. I was ready to enter an oven. 

Then—surprise: A young man, a civilian, appeared. Agitated, he said something about an uncle, then pointed at the house and yelled: “I think he’s in there!” 

Three of us connected our SCBA regulators to our masks and activated air flows. Breathe in through the nose, exhale through the mouth—don’t gulp, I reminded myself. I had perhaps 25 minutes of tank air measured by a gauge hanging off a shoulder strap.

The front door was unlocked; we did not have to force entry. Nozzle Man was first. I was right behind him, and I would lift-drag the charged hose—now thick and heavy with water, at 8.3 pounds per gallon—in a one-armed wrap while bracing Nozzle Man’s shoulders with my other arm. ‘Cap’ Ortiz was behind me, looking over and around us. 

I glanced over my shoulder: EMS was on site; two volunteer medics, a woman and a man, stood by the modular ambulance watching us. A county deputy sheriff was at the end of the driveway now, controlling access. 

“Go,” the VFD officer yelled, voice muffled in the SCBA. I pushed the door open. A puff of smoke greeted us. Nozzle Man released a brief water fog, pushing smoke and heat back from our entrance. Crouching, we shuffled forward as one, dragging the hose. Inside, the visible world shrank to what I could see through my mask, straight ahead and no peripheral vision. Firefighting is not for the claustrophobic. 

A layer of smoke hung at the ceiling. Ahead of us stood the tall back of a sofa facing the center of the room—probably the living room. We saw no one on the floor. To the left, maybe 20 feet away, flames from the garage were flicking through a partly open doorway. Nozzle Man turned, aimed, and released a quick water cone in that direction, then halted. Our priority was rescue. We turned. To the right, a carpeted path past the kitchen led down a short hallway to the bedrooms, which were our objectives for search. At this time of day, the occupant possibly would be there, maybe passed out on a bed or the floor. We crouch-walked past the kitchen. I looked down at its floor; no one there. An empty, 2-liter soda bottle standing on the counter buckled as the green plastic melted.

It must be at least 300° in here, I thought. I also noticed a 12-pack of Coors Lite, the box filled with empty beer cans, on the counter.

Nozzle Man placed the hose on the floor as we divided up to search. He entered the first door to the left, I took the master bedroom straight ahead, and Cap checked the room on the right. I pushed open the bedroom door and looked from left to right. I walked to the bed, reached down, and grabbed pillows and blankets and lifted them to check for a small person hidden underneath. 

Nothing. 

I walked around the bed, opened a folding-door closet, and looked in; no one there. I got on my hands and knees and looked under the bed, then crawled to the other side and looked there; nothing but the usual under-the-bed clutter of shoes, socks, and boxes. I stood and walked into the master bathroom; no one was on the floor or behind the shower curtain in the bathtub. I stepped out of the bathroom and heard a tapping. Another firefighter was outside the window, standing by to fog with water. 

He gestured his question; I replied, shaking my head: No one here.

Re-entering the hallway, I met Cap and Nozzle Man as they came out of their rooms. We all shook our heads: no one. Nozzle Man walked to the hose and bent to pick it up. I stepped into the living room, my head lowered under the ceiling-hugging smoke. There was a closet on the other side of the room to be checked. As I passed the sofa, I turned my head to look—no peripheral vision in SCBA—at the front of the sofa, which we had walked behind on entry. 

An unexpected sight rocked my head back like a boxer’s jab to the chin. 

On the sofa an overweight, middle-aged man lay in unclothed repose, head turned away, a small, bloody hole in his right temple. His right arm extended to the floor; near his hand was a short-barreled .32- or .38-caliber revolver. He was starting to roast in the heat. In a flash, I comprehended: He started the fire in the garage to destroy the house, then came in here and did this. We weren’t supposed to find him.

I waved at the other two firefighters and pointed at the sofa. They walked over and took in the sight. One shook his yellow-helmeted head, maybe in disgust, maybe in disappointment—not what we expected when we entered this oven. Turning, I spotted a gun safe standing beside a wall. Near it was a soggy pile of clothes where the man had disrobed. The safe’s metal door was open, and I could make out two or three long guns standing upright in their racks. 

At least he used the snub-nose and not a shotgun, I thought, grimly. 

Cap tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the other side of the room at a red object: a 2-gallon gasoline can. Some of its former contents now floated on the inch of water covering the floor. Somehow, the fuel had not ignited. Quickly confirming no one else was in the house, we knocked down the fire from two directions before it got much past the laundry room. The interior of the garage was mostly gone. 

Then, leaving the gruesome aftermath untouched, we stayed on site two more hours to preserve a possible crime scene for county investigators, although everybody knew it was arson–suicide, not murder–arson.

That night, in bed, I dreamt about the house fire. In a black-and-white movie shot through the lens of my SCBA mask, I was back in the smoky room. I saw the man on the sofa, the gunshot wound to his head, the revolver on the floor, and a hellish glow from down the hall. I heard demons yelping. And then, I woke up. It was morning and a new day. My Motorola pager was silent, sitting in its charger. After I sipped a cup of strong coffee my head cleared. I felt OK—glad to be alive. 

Small-town America needs trained volunteers. Unlike the public they serve, the unpaid first responders cannot avert their gaze, turn, and walk away from the occasional ugliness of American life.

Author Martin Kufus served 12 years as a volunteer firefighter in Wilson County, Texas. An Army veteran, Kufus is a former Soldier of Fortune editor (1995–1997). He is author of the nonfiction book Plow the Dirt but Watch the Sky. This is an excerpt from the book’s chapter “F is for Fire.”