fire

I love fighting fire! 

Okay, I do not. 

But I am eliciting the power of positive thinking: 

I love fighting fire. 

I love fighting fire. 

I love fighting fire.

Last night I was in my first fire. Lightening hit the roof of a three story house and it caught on fire. We were the second engine in. When we got there the first engine had pulled the initial attack line and was upstairs working on the fire. I pulled the backup line (second attack line) into the house. And by "I", I mean we. I had the nozzle and yanked that super-charged million-ton hose as best I could, but Tom (my lieutenant) took the brunt of the work feeding it up to me. 

About half way up the three stories of house I started questioning if this was the job for me. It was SO hard. The hose was so heavy, I was scared I couldn't do it. With the SCBA mask and the hood and helmet on, my field of vision was so narrow. I felt like I couldn't see anything that was going on around me. And my 60+ pounds of gear was weighing me down. And I was sucking up air like no ones business and I wasn't sure what to do once I got to the top floor. I almost cried I was so scared of my inadequacies. Don't tell the boys.

The good thing is that I was never scared for my life. The fire was always over my head, so I knew the floor under me was solid. It had self-ventilated so there was not a ton of smoke on the floor and I could see relatively well the whole time. And Tom was there every step of the way incase I needed help or got in trouble. 

So, my first fire is out of the way. I can't say I did well, but I didn't majorly screw up either. And if I think back, I didn't really know what to do at my first EMS code either, so I shouldn't feel too bad about my shortcomings at my first fire. I guess with practice I will get better. 

And until then I will just keep repeating:

I love fighting fire. 

I love fighting fire. 

I love fighting fire.