Rule Breaking

It was 03-something in the morning when the Minitor chirped.

Engine, Engine, Engine, Tanker, Tanker, etc.... chimney fire being upgraded straight to a full structure response. This could be interesting, but where is it?

Awww snap. Seven blocks away from ol' Grumpy's house, with Station 51 smack in between.

Not too many first due-fires for this run-down volunteer, let's hope we don't screw this up.

Arriving aboard E51 about four minutes later, there's fire showing from the roof of this double-wide mobile home all around the chimney in the center of the roof.

Let's not screw this up.

Dispatchers said everyone is out, but as I pull past the place and park it, all the lights are on but no one is in sight. Walking up to the place, I sure hope they aren't inside trying to get the cat or something. Visibility is actually nearly clear, the haze about like when you start up the fireplace and forget to open the damper. Walking in and calling out, the residents answer from through the open back door where they are in fact dealing with pets - thankfully already outside.

Rescue mitigated, I scope the wood stove in the center of the home on my way out. The ceiling around the pipe has burned away several inches, leaving a clear view into the freely burning attic void. Conveniently, with oxygen drawn from the living area and smoke venting through the roof, it is staying pretty clear inside. I should get out, pull a line, pack up and wait for help.

But we'll lose everything if we wait another ten minutes for next-due Engine 54.

When you choose to break the rules, be darn sure you can articulate why you did it and are positive that it will work.

I stretched a line from 51 and brought it to the door without grabbing a pack, had the guy living there help hump it in behind me from the front door, and put two quick bursts of straight stream into the attic. Knocked that fire right down, but stirred up the crap, so I dropped the tip and bailed out again before it got untenable. Outside, there were no longer flames visible from the roof. Nice.

54 made the scene, and now that we had four guys we went back to work.

We saved the place, still had 3/4 tank on Engine 51 and never used water from any other pieces.  Pretty cool, saving a mobile home and all its furnishings on the fringes of civilization, when the normal configuration for a burning rural mobile home at night is to serve as a navigational aid for aircraft.

Thank you God for helping me not screw that up and sending me excellent help.

Got lightly grilled about it later, but being able to articulate my reasoning and having a saved mobile home to our credit, the end result was our notoriously crusty Deputy Chief of few words simply saying "Super good job, Grumpy".  Whew.

Everything was all fine and dandy after that until the Chief put out a press release with my name in it.  Damn.  Ice cream for three staffed stations is expensive.

Stay safe out there.  And for heaven's sake do as I say, not as I do!

PAR

Still here.  Still in semi-blog-retirement but not ruling out future content that I often have promised but as yet failed to deliver.

Just in case anyone was wondering.

Hope your holidays and new year went well and your resolutions are holding up.  Stay safe out there.

Happens to All of Us

Beeeeep.

Engine 54, Engine 51, Engine 53, respond to a smell of smoke in a home.....

Upon my solo arrival in Engine 51, 54's crew was already in the house with the TIC trying to find the source of the burned plastic odor.  The air was clear, no visible smoke, but the smell was unmistakable.  I was directed to bring my TIC in as well, to help investigate inside, as nothing at all was visible from the outside.

We weren't making any progress by the time 53 arrived, and they were detailed with going around the perimeter outside with their TIC.

Furnace?  No problems.  Attic?  Nothing.  Electrical?  Nada.  Bad ballast in a fluorescent fixture?  Nope.  We kept coming back to the living room where the odor was strongest.

The fun part of this call was that the homeowner was a firefighter for the Very Large City Fire Department north of here across the county line.  He had tried to find the source for himself without success for quite a while, and eventually hit the point where he had to swallow his pride and call us in, because having your home burn down after you self-patrolled it for 30 minutes without successfully finding the source is much more embarrassing than having to call in the local firefighters.

Finally, it was Trev's voice: "Got it!".  He was by the wood stove, which the guy used to heat his home.  We had searched around it, behind it, checked the walls around it from the front and behind in other rooms, and had thoroughly inspected the chimney's path through to the roof several times and found nothing other than the normal and safe heat signature expected, with nothing unusual found to explain the odor.  Until Trev took a fourth long look, and was the first of us to look under it.

There, on the brick base near the fireplace, were three toy cars melted nearly into blobs, that Trev had scooped out from the 2" gap under the wood stove.

There you go.  Darn kids!

Don't worry homeowner firefighter from the VLCFD, it happens to all of us.  We won't tell.  At least we're not naming names.  And to be fair, it took us forever to find it, too.

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Our prayers and thoughts go out to those affected by Hurricane Sandy and the brave souls working to keep everyone safe from harm and get the power back on.  Read of some freakishly amazing feats of courage and heroism by many out there.  Well done, and please make sure you get back home to your families in one piece.

Another Sendoff

The power dispatching world is a small one, a very tight community.  I've bounced around a little, as have many of us, and I now know folks in dispatch and operations management all over the country that I have worked alongside literally or figuratively.

The best power companies have an internal family structure very much like the fire department, very familial.  You work with the same two or three guys on a shift for years, it gets that way.  And you bitch about guys on the other shifts who don't clean up or put things in the wrong place.  Sometimes we can get pretty owly with each other about the dumbest things, but none of us would bat an eye at loaning a car to each other or families sharing a cabin for the weekend.  Sound familiar?

For that reason, when something bad happens to a member of the extended family nearly anywhere in the country, just like in the online fire community, it tends to impact someone you know within a degree or two.

Last week the Bonneville Power Administration lost a lineman out on the west coast, near Spokane I think.  He fell from a transmission tower during routine maintenance, and while he was wearing a full harness it is not clear what went wrong yet.

I know the feel in the dispatch center when you get that first frantic field call of an injury to personnel.  Of hearing voices on the radio you're familiar with remaining calm but with that edge that tells you its bad.  Just like the fire service.

Word started to filter around, and I got an email from a colleague the same day.  The name sounded a little familiar, and I couldn't figure out why.  I went to Facebook to contact a former colleague and old friend who dispatches for BPA now, because standard response for all of us is to pass the hat for the family, to get the details we needed to help out.  And right there in his short list of friends on his profile was the fallen lineman.  Probably where I had seen the name before, I guess.

He had just celebrated his first anniversary earlier this month, and his wife is expecting a son.  These never get any easier over time, fire or utility LODDs, but it helps knowing that in this kind of organization (just like fire), his wife and son will be well cared for by the brethren.

My BPA friend emailed over some pictures from the procession today.  The colors of the trucks are different, but the emotion is the same.

Rest easy Matt, your brothers will take it from here.

Another Cat Call

So a little girl of nine years old found her kitty up a tree. Being resourceful and with her Mom's permission, she looked up the non-emergency number of her local fire department (not my agency) and asked if they could help.

Now, normally, the answer is of course no, but the LT who took the call just could not bring himself to deny her directly. And hey, they don't get to practice with the old Sqrt that often, so c'mon boys let's call it a drill. The crew of four climbed aboard the rarely-used 1975 American LaFrance with the 65' Telesqrt and headed out to save the day.

Upon arrival, the little girl was pretty calm but clearly concerned. Mom was right there, admirably guiding her daughter through learning how to properly handle emergencies on her own but otherwise staying out of the way. From the accounts I've heard, Mom was pretty terrific about the whole thing.

So, little girl, where's your kitty? Which tree?

She pointed up. Way up. Way, way, waaay up. The LT's face fell. There was no way the 65-footer had a chance to reach up to the crazy height that kitty had ascended to. Once again faced with not wanting to tell the little girl "no", he apologized because they did not have a bigger ladder truck in the fleet and suggested maybe the power company could help. It was a stretch of desperation, sure, but who wants to shut down an adorable little girl who thinks you're the best heroes ever?

Then, like magic, they got an actual call, promptly responding gallantly to a medical emergency, without being forced to slink away in depressed failure.

Ever the resourceful young lady, the lass followed the LT's advice, and we got the call. It routed in here to dispatch (this being the first I heard about it), and my initial reaction was not just no, but hell no. We can't set a precedent for doing non-utility work. This is the fireman in me talking, of course. Then the customer service rep asked if I wanted to speak to the caller. Prepared to do my usual logical explanation of why we couldn't help, she transferred the little girl to me.

Of course, I had no idea the caller was a little girl. And then she told me how the firemen had let her down.

Damn you! I am powerless against her abilities! Like the LT, I looked around for an out. Like magic, there was Gary, having just returned from his service duty tour and filling out his timesheet. Miss, can you hold a second?

I gave Gary a quick rundown of the situation. He kind of relished the idea of outdoing the fire department. No one was using the highline truck (the one we use to reach the really high transmission lines on the towers) and nothing was really going on, so he grabbed the keys and headed out. I attempted to call the fire station she had called but no answer (they were still on that call apparently), left a message.

The highline truck's bucket goes up to 100', and it was pretty much at its maximum extension when he reached the kitty, which thankfully didn't scamper up any higher when he moved in for the grab. Sensibly, he had Mom take the little girl inside while they worked in case kitty decided to take a crazy suicide leap, but kitty was fairly cooperative about getting into the cat carrier.

Gary said the look on the little girl's face will be a permanent highlight on his career, and that beating the fire department in the rescue business was just icing.

I got a call back later from the LT, who filled me in on all that I had missed before we got the call, and was very happy to hear that things worked out well. I arranged for Gary to get a little private attaboy in our next staff meeting, but we can't publicize it too wide or we'll start getting more of these, right?

Good job, Gary. Don't take it too hard, LT.