The Fire

[Linden C.]

The radio crackled to life, “Unit 5885, are you still in Sector 6?”  I replied that I was and was told to go around and help the Sheriff’s office spread the evacuation order.  Despite being early afternoon, the sky was very dark and smokey.  The ash settled like gray snowflakes and stuck to the cars, bushes, and the street.

I turned the corner on the cul-de-sac and all the houses I could see were dark, no cars, no one was home, but I had to check.  I walked around the street, knocking on doors and getting no answers.  Then I saw, out back of another house, a small cottage at the end of a driveway.  The lights were on, and a car parked out front.  I walked back and rang the bell.  A young woman answered, a baby cradled in her arms.  She had a very worried look about her.

“Ma’am” I asked, “Are you aware of the evacuation order?  The fire is burning west towards the ocean, but if the winds shift into an onshore flow, it could flare up these canyons and come into this area.” She looked so small, and troubled.  She explained that her car wasn’t working, and that her husband had been killed in an oil rig accident in the middle east earlier this year, before the baby had been born.  She didn’t know what to do.
“There are shelters available” I said.  “I can see if I can get some transportation up here, but it might be a while.  Do you have any family or someone that can come help you nearby?”  “No, there is no one.” she said.  The neighbors had all left without checking on her, and her family was back east.  Her husband had been an only child and both his parents had passed.  I took her phone number, and suggested she listen to the radio or watch social media and that I would be in contact as soon as I could. 

I radioed when I got back to my truck, “Dispatch, we have a single mom up here who is stuck.  Is there any way to get transport to a local shelter if the winds shift?” 

Later that night, the alarm sounded in the Field Station, the Santa Ana’s that had been blowing the fire towards the sea had died and the onshore flow had picked up.  The fires raced up the oceanside mountain canyons and draws gathering speed as the convective currents fueled a new fire storm.  Along with my crew, I jumped into my turnout gear and as they boarded the rough terrain fire engine to head out to Sector 6, I followed in my command vehicle.  Overhead we could hear the ancient twin propeller DC-3’s swooping in to drop retardant, and the Army’s UH-60 Blackhawks dropping water from the buckets suspended beneath them. 

We raced to the roads above the canyons, and lit backfires or sprayed the uphill slopes to wet them down.  My phone rang, it was the young mother.  “No one has called or come by.  The fire is very close.  What should I do?”  I could hear the panic in her voice and the baby was wailing in the background.  “Stay there I said, I am coming to get you!”.  I called out to my 2nd in command, “Keep doing what you’re doing.  Coordinate with the Fire Boss and the Air Boss for drops.  Run the top of the slope and keep the fire from jumping the road!”

I was glad that I had topped of my small tank on the truck but knew that wouldn’t be very helpful for a large flare up.  I rounded the cul-de-sac entrance and pulled right into the cottage’s driveway.  I grabbed by e-bag and ran up to the door.  She pulled it open, bag in hand and baby in her arms.  Just then a might crack sounded and I could see in her face that something awful was happening behind me.  I turned around in time to see a burning scrub oak, come crashing down across the back of my truck, destroying it and blocking our escape. Pushing her back inside, I shut the door.

The fire had raced up the slope on the other side of the cul-de-sac and had come down into the street area.  We couldn’t flee on foot in any direction.  Pulling an extra Nomex shirt and the survival fire shelter from my bag, I lay us down in the middle of the bathroom’s tile floor.  I wrapped the baby in the Nomex Shirt and stripped my own shirt off to give to her.  We listened to the roar of the fire all around us was a hurricane of fire, swirling and dancing all around the street.  Brush that had not been cleared away in years exploded in flames, and we could hear the sap boiling and exploding from the evergreens.  We heard more of the large scrub oaks come crashing down.  But mostly we heard the sound of our own heartbeats and wondered how many more we would hear. 

The house caught fire and when the windows shattered and the air rushed in, the backdraft sucked in the flames and the ceiling and roof began to burn. I pulled the shelter tight around us, tucking the hand and foot loops in place.  I cradled her as she cradled the baby.  I know that the reflective aluminum surface was protect us from some of the heat and the air we trapped inside would last for a while.  But these shelters were designed for one firefighter, not three people. 

The baby began to wail; it was terrified.  Not knowing what else to do, the mother opened the shirt I had given her and began to nurse the baby.  But the baby was too frightened to latch.  She then said, “Do you think you could pull some milk from me, and pass it into my baby’s mouth?”

I was astounded.  I hadn’t even breastfeed when I was a baby.  My own mother was a product of the “enlightened” 1970’s where formula was touted by all the pediatricians.  The Maternity ward nurses said Mother’s milk was not as good as the new formulas.  I didn’t know what to do.  “Please, please” she said. 

I lowered my mouth to her nipple.  I tried to suck, but nothing came out.  “No, you don’t really suck,  you have to latch on and suckle. Take the whole front of my breast into your mouth and press the nipple up against the roof of your mouth with your tongue.”

Just then the ceiling of the bathroom came crashing down.  We were wedged tight against the tub and the debris caught on the frame of the door.  With a sudden intake of breath, I gulped a mouthful of milk into my throat, and then coughing and sputtering, spit it all over her chest.  But I had gotten some.  It tasted sweet.  I latched on again, pulled more into my mouth and this time, passed it onto the baby. 

It stopped crying for a moment and began rooting for the nipple itself.  The baby latched on and I could see the relief on the mother’s face.  She moaned slightly as the baby began pulling.  The fire raged on over us, but the part of the ceiling that had fallen provided a sort of lean-to and we felt no other debris atop us.  There was nothing else we could do.  I held onto the mother and the baby in our little foil cocoon.  I drifted in and out of consciousness, hoping the air would not run out.

The next thing I knew, it was quiet.  The shelter was rustling as wind ran though the fallen house.  I lifted the corner slowly, and felt smokey, but fresh air.  I peeled back the corner, and looked down at the mother in my arms, and the baby in hers.  The baby lay still latched on, but neither were moving. 

I pulled away and threw off the shelter.  The lean-to was close down on top of us, having collapsed the shower door.  Glass was everywhere.  I inverted the shelter and slid us out from beneath the ceiling.  I grabbed the baby in one arm, and the mother in the other.  I looked around but there was no clear path out of the house, but I began to make my way toward what had been the front door.  There were no houses standing, only frames, skeletons and rubble. 

My truck was burned to the rims, and the side boxes where crushed under the tree.  But the passenger door had popped open.  I worked my way around and saw my SCBA tank and mask.  I pulled the mask onto her face, and turned it on, praying she would breathe.  I closed up my shirt, and began pressing on her chest.  I took the mask off and blew into her mouth, inflating her lungs, then I put the mask back on her.  I looked at the baby and gently blew into its mouth too.  Once, twice, three short puffs, and the baby spit up and then began to cry.  This was the 2nd time in a few hours I got covered in milk.  The mother also began to cough and sputter, but with each breath she pulled from the mask, she calmed down.  I turned to survey the damage, and blacked out.

“Brother, are you ok, are you awake there?” I heard a distant voice say.  I opened my eyes and saw my assistant looking down at me, through the fabric of my own shirt.  I was laying down, with my head cradled on her lap, the mask from my SCBA up on my own forehead.  She had pulled to her and placed the mask on me until the air ran out. 

I tried to speak, but only a croak came out.  He pulled me up to a sitting position and gave me a drink.  I turned and saw why my shirt was over my face, she was nursing the baby, unashamed and unconcerned that there were fire fighter and other first responders around.  A pair of medics rolled up with a gurney and helped her on to it, the baby never leaving her breast.  Then a second gurney appeared and I was helped up onto it.  “You saved her!”, my colleague said.  “How the hell you didn’t die is beyond me, but you did it.  You are either going to get a medal for that, or fired for leaving your post, or both, but you did good boss!”

I spent the next few nights in a hospital near the beach.  I had bad smoke inhalation, and some scarring of my lung tissue.  The last night I was there, after visiting hours, when the ward lights were low, I heard my nurse come into my room.  They did that every 2 hours to check my vitals.  But this time there were two of them.  The nurse checked my blood pressure, and made sure I was comfortable, then she left. 

That’s when I saw who the second person was, the mother.  “Are you OK?” I asked.  “How is the baby?” She came close to the side of my bed and pulled over a chair where I could see her in the soft glow of the night lights.  Before sitting down, she kissed my forehead and said, “I am ok, some smoke damage in my lungs like you, but the baby is fine.  I wanted to thank you personally before I left tomorrow and would probably never see you again.  We would never have survived if you hadn’t come by.  My son surely wouldn’t have had he kept screaming and breathing in the smoke.  You helping me calm him down saved him.” “What can I ever do to repay you?” she asked. She was honest and sincere, she looked as if she was about to cry. 

I stammered, “I am a firefighter, that is what we do.  You have no need to thank me anymore than you and your son being alive, that is thanks enough.  But, there is something that I would like to experience again.  I don’t know if it the drugs talking, and if this is way to weird, you can say no, and it will never come up again.  I would like to…”

Without another word, she parted the folds of her hospital gown, and placed her breast against my mouth.  “Remember, you don’t really suck, you have to latch on and suckle.”

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