Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [9]
“We’ll get him. You just go that way. You’ll find a doorway down there.”
The shorter firefighter spoke into his remote microphone. “Leary Command from Division D. We’ve found Ladder One. We’re sending the first member out. We’ll be bringing out the other member in a few minutes.”
“Leary Command, okay. Do you need help?”
Finney didn’t hear the rest of the transmission. He was walking upright in the smoke now, sensing clean air just footsteps away. He could almost taste the paper cup of cool Gatorade he knew was waiting for him. What a nightmare this whole thing had turned into. For some minutes there he’d actually thought he and Bill weren’t going to make it.
5. HOSPITAL LINEN LIKE BOARDS
The lights pierced his eyes like lasers, and his eyeballs felt as if they’d been sandpapered with #80 grit. The bedsheets might as well have been made out of boards. He knew his ears and neck and wrists had been daubed with something, and he could tell he’d been given medication, though he hadn’t asked what. In fact, he hadn’t spoken. Not for some time now. He didn’t know why. It wasn’t until his brother, Tony, a captain at Station 17, showed up that he felt any inclination to use his voice.
“You’re going to be okay,” Tony whispered, the way some people did in sickrooms. “Just take it easy. Right now your only job is to rest up and heal.”
Finney’s throat was dry and raw. “How’s Bill?”
“They’re going to put you into a decompression chamber to help get the carbon monoxide out of your blood. Fact is, they’re still a little worried over whether you’re going to make it. But you’ll bounce back. Just do what the doctors say and stay relaxed.”
“Bill. Where is he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“He okay?”
“You don’t need to worry about him.”
“Was his leg broken?”
“I don’t know. You just lie back and don’t think about anything but getting some rest.”
“Was I burned?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Not too bad.”
“My ears?”
“Your ears’ll be okay.”
“I don’t feel any pain.”
“Don’t worry. You will.”
6. DODGING THE BULLET
In the rest area 150 feet from the fire buildings, the radiant heat on Diana Moore’s face felt like a fresh sunburn. Crews manning hose lines in the parking lot were directing water, tons of it, into the buildings. Some of the more alert firefighters on the hose lines tried to knock down embers so they wouldn’t drift out of the neighborhood and ignite secondary fires, but Diana could see it was a losing battle. Propelled by the tremendous heat rising off the buildings, sparks raced unhindered up into the night sky like antiaircraft rounds.
The structures to the north had taken off first, but now spirals of flame were shooting out the high windows on the warehouse. Electrical wires on nearby utility poles had burned off and were dancing in the street. Pools of water spread under hose connections in the parking lot and drained downslope toward the fire, where the water evaporated. When the moving vans outside the building burst into flame, one ill-fated firefighter was sprayed with hot rubber from an exploding tire.
Across the street the damp from the high hose streams drizzled onto a crowd of spectators. Water beaded up on parked cars and fire engines. Two women in bathrobes huddled under an umbrella watching the fire.
So many spaghetti lines crisscrossed in the street that in places the hoses were layered several feet deep. On the warehouse roof flames leaped fifty feet into the air. Engine companies manning deck guns shot eight hundred gallons a minute into the conflagration.
Diana wished she knew how a pair of experienced firefighters like Captain Cordifis and John Finney had gotten into so much trouble. She had been on the crew all day, had worked with these men, joked with them, and through