My first job!

At 0645 this morning, I was (thankfully) sleeping when my pager went off. Getting my sandals and shirt on, I read:

APT COMPANY- XXX KEYSTONE DR 47-19 NAT: FAL - FIRE ALARM; TRUCKS: 18E 18L NOTES: XXXXX COMPANY - DUCT DETECTOR

Arriving at the station, I joined Chauffer Mogenson, Safety Officer DiCiccio, FF Conicelli and FF Bailey on Ladder 18. It was a nice morning. Not too hot, not humid. Pulling up on scene, a police officer came out of the building and said there was a fire. Since we all know that cops think a piece of burnt toast = fire, FF Conicelli and I went in to check it out.

The facilities manager showed up where the alarm was going off. Upon entering the building from Side A, we could smell smoke. When we got to the main part of the facility, we saw a huge glass-walled enclosure where they make fittings for gas pipes. Going around to side C, the manager showed us a small room via a window(about 6' by 10') that was completely filled with smoke. Going up a maintenance stairwell over the site, we saw a circle on the top of that room that was literally bubbling paint. FF Conicelli radioed that we had a fire and informed the chauffer and FF Bailey to get the 1 3/4 hose line stretched.

At this point mutual aid assigments were called in (Wissahickon-Sta. 7 and North Penn-Sta 62). We got the attack line set up. FF Bailey was the control and stayed at the doors helping advance the hose line. FFConicelli and I went to the room, donned our SCBA and waited for the hoseline to charge. When fully charged, we entered the room, used a straight-stream to attack the ceiling to disrupt the thermal layers then made a quick knock of the fire.

We believe a ceiling exhaust fan caught fire, but since the fan was above the side-mounted sprinkler, it was not able to fully extinguish the fire.

Units were in service until (I think) 0830 and I got home around 1030. 62 and 7 helped us with overhaul and clean-up. The building's strong air circulation system made it difficult for us to ventilate the building but we sucecssfully vented the smoke after about 40 minutes.

This was my first building fire that I was actually inside doing front-line work. The funny thing is: I always told myself and anyone else that I would never do this in a big industrial or retail-type building. But I know and trust FF Conicelli and he knows I'll stick to him like stink on a skunk. Even though we've never did this before, what we were doing became automatic in many ways and no one really stopped and said, "hey the deaf guy is doing this.."

Bottom line: if I can do it, any idiot can do it. :-)