Page 60 of Fire & Ice

Fire doesn’t care how tough you think you are.

Elsewhere in the two buildings, Gunnar is putting the seasoned crews from Fifteen through their paces, sending them floor-to-floor on last checks for anything out of placeor unsafe. Specifically, they’re looking for crumbling walls or large cracks permeating the cement structure. It’s good practice for firefighters to spend time existing in SCBA gear with no actual risk present, but the checks are also important for safety purposes. The buildings were walked through last night and they’re regularly maintained by the company who built them, but even concrete has its limits when it comes to fire and heat.

Everythingdoes, and the last thing any of the officers want is to douse a training fire and have the resulting steam put pressure on an already-stressed crack, resulting in half the building coming down on top of their heads.

It could happen. Nothing istrulysafe or risk-free when it comes to live fire—that’s just the nature of the beast.

Tripp reminds his trainees of that fact like a broken record, using the room they’re all currently huddled in to make his point. “Stay low,” he reminds them, when a firefighter or two try to lean on the sills of closed windows to make themselves more comfortable. Hardly any of them have radios, so Tripp has to raise his voice to be heard through his apparatus and over the crackling of the fire, which means that the resulting grumble of complaints he gets in return are almost completely stifled.

“Fine, stand if you want. Your brains will roast inside your skulls, but clearly, you’re not using them for anything, anyway. This is Firefighting 101,” Tripp yells from his crouch on the other side of the blaze.

“Two hundred degrees near the floor means up totwo thousandnear the ceiling. You think that difference doesn’t matter when it comes to how long you’ll last inside a real burning building? Be my guest, try it out. All the faster I can weed your asses off my crew. Trust and believe, you do not want someone who doesn’t respect the danger that fire presents holdingyourlife in their hands. Not when they’re at your back,and not when you’re trapped under burning rubble. Don’t be that person, got it?”

Clipped to his shoulder, Tripp’s radio mic crackles to life and Gunnar’s voice can be heard saying, “We’re in place, brotha. Whenever you’re ready.”

“Alright,” Tripp announces, clapping his hands together once as Mac hauls another pallet in through the doorway and throws it on top of the bonfire. The blast of oxygen from outside fuels the flames and makes them surge like a wave, licking up the closest wall and onto the ceiling. “Search and rescue drill—hand to foot chain, clear the second floor. There are at least two victims.Talk to each other.Go!”

As the trainees crawl awkwardly through the only door leading out of the room-turned-oven, Tripp watches them move with a critical eye. Each has one gloved hand on the gear-covered ankle of the firefighter in front of them, and the other alternately used for balance and to clear the ground around them.

“Echo,” he snaps, and the EMT-turned-potential-firefighter visibly jumps, even under all of her gear and down on all-fours. “You’re not clearing the space as you go! You could have easily missed a downed victim moving the way that you are. Don’t cut corners, don’t think of this as ‘practice.’ You want victims brought to you, go back to the ambulance and stay there. Rescues are onyourhead now, so here’s your first lesson—” Tripp pauses dramatically as Mac punctuates his sentence by tossing another broken pallet onto the blaze. “It’salwaysreal.”

The day is exhausting. They wind up doing five full evolutions, which is an aggressive effort. The trainees participate in the first four, and then the experienced firefighters do a coordinated, advanced interior attack tocombat a progressed fire on the industrial side of the burn building.

When he’s not stoking the flames, Mac is filling air bottles, one after another after another, so the training can continue uninterrupted. Slowly but surely, the newbies learn to manage their oxygen better, learn to calm down, to breathe through the stress, to relax enough to use critical thinking instead of just their automatic fight or flight reflexes and whatever passed for competency during “Essentials” class.

Under Tripp and Gunnar’s direction, they run hose line, hook up hydrants, throw ladders, learn to break into windows several stories up, rescue their fellow firefighters, and practice extinguishing blazes from both inside the structure and out. Every one of them improves, enough that by mid-afternoon, Tripp’s no longer adding to the short-list in his head of the recruits Mickey needs to fire immediately.

In fact, some of them turn it around so hard, Tripp actually feels honored to be leading them. He hopes that Mickey feels the same way about the job he’s done organizing this thing.

Echo is the real surprise. The pride Tripp feels in his chest when he sees the timid EMT leaning halfway out of a third floor window, successfully carrying a firefighter heavier than she is over her shoulder, threatens to rip his heart in two. From down on the ground, he can see Echo start to struggle, so Tripp quickly begins clapping and whipping Cody, Max, and several of the other trainees standing and watching below into a mad frenzy. They root loudly for her as she holds her own trying to get the “unconscious person” out the window and safety into the Aerial’s raised bucket.

As Echo finally succeeds in passing the boneless firefighter on her shoulder over to the two crew members waiting in the bucket with absolutelyzerohelp from inside, the noise aroundTripp is deafening. Everyone is screaming and jumping around, cheering Echo on. As soon as he’s in, the ‘downed’ firefighter stands up and pulls off his—oops, no, that’s definitely Chloe, her—helmet, and Echo yanks off her SCBA mask to reveal a face-cracking smile.

Tripp can’t even bring himself to reprimand them when Chloe leans across the space between the bucket and the window to drag Echo into averyapproving kiss.

“Fuck yeah, Echo!” Tripp yells up at her, pointing his finger and nodding with approval. “That’s how we do it! Alright, you talented sons o’bitches—gender neutral, obviously—we’re changing it up. Trainees, tear down the residential structure setups, unpack, and then head to the hill where you can watch the rest of us rock out a commercial demonstration. Chloe, stop pretending to be a probie and get down here.”

Up in the bucket, Chloe kisses Echo one last time before smashing their hands together in an energetic, congratulatory, gloved high-five. The affectionate, adoring looks they continue to exchange as the bucket comes down and Echo rests her elbows on the windowsill suddenly have Tripp’s chest aching for a whole different reason, andGod,is he excited to see Leander tonight. He only wishes he had a minute to strip his gear down and find his phone, to check in, but as it is, his crews are waiting for instructions on the big demo they’re facing.

Mickey sits this one out completely, allowing Gunnar and Tripp to run the entire advanced drill by themselves. It’s definitely an evaluation, for sure, but it’s also a show of trust, and one that Tripp appreciates. This final evolution includes a monster fire and a not-small amount of real danger, but under Gunnar and his leadership, the whole thing goes professionally smooth. All told, the crews put on an exhibition that Tripp feels immensely proud to have the newbies witnessing.

Sprawled out on the grass nearby, the exhausted trainees sit sweaty and red-faced with their air packs and jackets piled around them, the cold breeze a welcome reprieve after everything they’ve been through today. Tripp’s pretty sure he even sees some of them takingnotes.

Once the last fire is out and the complex is cleared, the remainder of Station Fifteen’s crews file out of the damp, smoking building. They’re pulling off helmets and hoods, masks and jackets, checking in and ensuring that every person is accounted for before so much as sitting down. Everyone is visibly tired, but it’s thegoodkind—this was a productive, successful day for all involved. The new recruits are learning, one step closer to being considered reliable and dependable in the field. The existing crews, likewise, had a chance to brush up on their skills and reaffirm trust between co-workers, which goes a long way for both practical proficiencyandmorale.

The burn building will take almost a full day to cool down before it can be checked for new damage. Normally, that task would fall to Mickey—and by extension in this particular case, Tripp—but both of them are otherwise occupied tomorrow night, so Walter has volunteered to take care of it. Tripp supposes he’ll have to thank Bozo for getting him out of that one, however unintentionally.

Speaking of which, as they’re finishing packing up their gear and readying the trucks to return to the station, Tripp glances at his watch for the first time in hours.Four-thirty.Only an hour and a half until his shift is over and Lee will be meeting him at the station to head to the rehearsal. As Tripp pulls himself up and into the engine’s cab, he realizes that he should dig out his phone and find out whether Lee is going to take the bus or leave his car at Fifteen overnight.

Either way is fine, but they’re both meant to head back to his and Beau's place with the other groomsmen after dinner, and Tripp isn’t keen on him and Lee splitting up while Christian is around. Plus, one car instead of two means one less designated driver necessary, and Tripp isn’t trying to be sober for this.

Lee will probably take the bus anyway,he thinks. Lee’s always ten steps ahead of him, not that Tripp is complaining.

Just as he’s about to shove his hand down under his bunker pants and go fishing for his phone to make sure, Tripp hears Gunnar put the entire station back on ready status with the 911 Center. That’s standard procedure, since they’re now capable of responding to calls if needed. It’s neither responsible nor considerate to the covering company to keep them tied up longer than necessary—after all, they have their own territories to worry about.

They’ve also been lucky (or rather, Eleven’s been lucky, depending on your point of view), since the radio-designated fire bands have been quiet all day. As far as Tripp knows, the only things Eleven responded to in their stead were a minor accident with fluids down on the roadway (not serious and no injuries), a report of a fuel odor in a residential neighborhood (unfounded), and an automatic fire alarm at the local Walmart (accidental activation, i.e., some asshole teenager pulled it).

Really, Tripp and his crews didn’t miss out on a thing.

---