Page 33 of Spark
Which meant they had to fight it far faster than ever.
He’d no sooner turned back toward the flames than Hawkins and Faurier came crashing into the room on a tide of what-the-fucks.“How the hell does a containment system like this one fail?”Faurier yelled.
“I ain’t havin’ a discussion panel to find out right now,” Hawkins said.“Anyone in here?”
“Negative,” Tyler and Ryan said together.They’d met in the middle of the lab, and the storage space, although actively burning, had floor-to-ceiling windows that showed only growing damage to whatever was locked away in there, but no people.
Hawkins nodded.“Copy that.”Two firefighters, presumably from Squad Thirty-Nine, came barging into the room on another chorus of holy shit.One succinct report to command and a handful of equally terse orders from Captain Bridges later, and the firefighters from Thirty-Nine had pulled back to handle the flames in their exit path.Hawkins dished out orders like slices of pie, each of the firefighters in his command falling into place to contain the fire, one sweep at a time.Tyler’s muscles screamed from the exertion, the sweat that had long since soaked his brow streaming down to sting his eyes, but he didn’t slow.
The four of them worked in tandem, clipped words flying back and forth as they slowly, steadily progressed, one foot, then two, then six.The fire fought back, snapping and throwing last-ditch sparks around the room.But the dry chemical solution smothered the flames, and finally, they got the fire contained enough not to spread to any other hazardous materials.With the threat of combustion under control, Squad Six fell out to let the Engine and Truck firefighters now lining the entire street take over to extinguish the rest of the blaze.
As soon as Tyler made it past the lobby and to the pavement in front of the building, he whipped off his helmet and mask, blinking rapidly in an effort to get his whirling senses to adjust.The first breath of God’s honest air hit Tyler in a whoosh, and he shotgunned a few lungfuls of the stuff even though his sinuses protested the bitter-burnt scent.A paramedic from another house rushed over with a bottle of water, and Tyler downed more than half of it in greedy gulps.
“Thanks,” he gasped.The paramedic nodded, handing him another one—“for your head,” he said, because cooling the body from the outside was one of the most effective ways to combat heat exhaustion, which could sneak up on a firefighter in seconds—before moving on.Tyler caught sight of Hawkins beside the squad vehicle, and he covered the ground between them in only a handful of steps.
“You good?”Hawkins asked, and Tyler nodded in the affirmative, although he started shucking the layers of his gear to keep it that way.The cold water from the second bottle slid over his head and down between his shoulder blades, and the cool relief was so strong, Tyler wouldn’t be shocked to discover actual steam rising off his skin.
“Yeah.Status?”he asked, taking in the scene.
“The fire in the lab has been fully extinguished,” Hawk said, lifting his chin at both Ryan and Faurier as they arrived at the vehicle, looking about the same as Tyler felt (read: like soot-coated, desiccated shit).“The Haz-Mat threat has been contained.The rest of the building is still burning pretty good, though, so Engine’ll have to soak the place.”
Easier said than done, considering how quickly the fire had spread before they’d started to contain it.
The thought pricked at Tyler’s brain, not for the first time.“If the containment system had been working, the fire wouldn’t have gotten that bad in the first place, let alone spread to any other parts of the building,” he said.A lab with chemicals like ethanol, in a building this size?They should’ve had backups coming out of their backups to prevent a fire so catastrophic.
“Itisa pretty huge system failure,” Ryan agreed, although, Christ, it was a giant fucking understatement.No working failover, faulty electromagnetic locks, liquid chemicals exposed to open flames.They should be shocked they’d been able to get in there at all, let alone contain the fire before it had destroyed everything down to the foundation.Although, with exposure to this much heat and smoke, who knew if anything in the building was even salvageable, especially in the lab.
“I’m sure it ain’t gonna be overlooked,” Hawk said.“The company that owns the science center will have to do one hell of an investigation, and the RFD will review our reports.City brass don’t take too well to first responders bein’ in harm’s way unnecessarily, and the property damage is gonna be massive, so the insurance company ain’t gonna be none too pleased, either.If someone was negligent, I’m sure we’ll hear about it.”
Tyler’s brows shifted upward.“A catastrophic after-hours fire, a busted containment system, faulty locks, and poor handling of hazardous chemicals?Seems like an awful lot of oversight.Unless the fire was set intentionally.”
Surprise unfolded in his chest that he’d let the words loose.Theywerea little crazy.Despite what most people thought and what TV portrayed, arson was statistically rare.In all his years as a firefighter, he’d worked less than a handful of fires that had been set intentionally, and even then, they were usually pretty obvious attempts to commit insurance fraud.In fact, the only true firebug they’d ever chased had been earlier that year, and Faurier and Lucy had worked the case with Arson Investigation.Still, Tyler realized that foul play had been his first thought when he’d seen those containers of ethanol, and he’d learned never to dismiss his gut out of hand.
Apparently, the thought wasn’t all that far-fetched, because Faurier nodded.“I’ve got to admit, I agree.I know I’m wired to make the leap to arson more than most, but Gates is right.Something about this feels off.”
Ryan nodded in agreement, but Hawk lifted a palm.“I ain’t arguing.Itisa fair point.Containment systems don’t usually fail, and whoever’s responsible for that ethanol has a lot of explaining to do.But we aren’t gonna get any answers tonight, and this scene’s still not secure.We’ve got to do our jobs and let Arson Investigation do theirs.’Til there’s somethin’ more than speculation, let’s focus on what’s in front of us.”
As much as it bugged Tyler, Hawk was right.Making a bunch of guesses, especially without facts to back them up, would only get everyone twisted up in feelings they didn’t have room for.They were here to fight fire, period, and while this one might be under control for the moment, there were no guarantees it would stay that way.Shifting his attention to the scene, Tyler followed the commands clipping back and forth on the radio, watching as Engine firefighters from three separate companies began to douse the building from strategic points outside.A thick haze of heat, mist, and smoke chugged into the night sky, covering the entire block like a veil.Tyler’s eyes watered, the burnt sulfur smell of the fire invading his senses, but slowly, just as they had inside the lab, the flames grew weaker, then billowed out completely.
Tyler’s body sagged with exhaustion, both from the physical exertion and the adrenaline letdown that always tackled him like a linebacker after an active fire call, and when Captain Bridges finally handed off command to another officer for flare-up prevention and cleanup management, he couldn’t fight his relief.With the number of emergency response vehicles, police cars, and—yep—the Arson Investigation team that had just shown up on the scene, Tyler knew Hawk would be pushing them to get their reports written up ASAP.
But first, Tyler was going to eat a dozen red velvet cookies, take a ninety-minute shower, and sleep like he’d been cold-cocked.
Ryan must’ve shared the sentiment, because as soon as they were in the back step with their gear stored and the doors shut tight, he closed his eyes.It was a great idea that Tyler stole, and before he realized that more than a blink had passed, Faurier was backing the squad vehicle into the engine bay beside Engine Seventeen.
“Wait,” Ryan said groggily, frowning into the brightly lit doorway leading into the fire house.“What the hell?”
Tyler followed his best friend’s stare, his heart tapping faster at the sight of Addison standing on the threshold.
At the sight of Chloe standing beside her, wearing six different expressions and none of them good?His heart did something altogether more forceful.
“What is it?What’s wrong?”Ryan asked, striding across the concrete floor.Tyler must’ve followed directly on his six because he was right there in the doorway with them, although he hadn’t registered actually crossing the engine bay.
“The fire you just responded to,” Chloe said, the words crashing out.“The one at the forensics lab.How bad was it?Was anything destroyed?”
Confusion swamped Tyler’s brain.“You stayed here all this time to ask about the call we just went on?”It was practically midnight.
“Yes,” Chloe said at the same time Addison held up her hands in surrender.
