It was a cool fall evening, the tones broke the calm, and I was off to the station. "Signal 62, to the north end for a reported structure fire!" This was a place we'd been to many times before, usually for food on the stove. But as always, I was in the back gearing up and as we turned the corner entering the complex, we could see it wasn't food this time! People were running around screaming, "There's a fire in the third floor!"
We were the first Engine in and residents told us there was no one in the building. As we pulled the 1 1/2" through the door leading to the stairwell, flames were pouring out the third floor windows. By now other apparatus were arriving and we had help. A second line and a search team joined us as we made our way to up the stairs. We operate as automatic mutual aide for two Departments working this fire with us, so we have worked with most of these Firefighters before. You get to know the Brothers and Sisters you do this job with, and it was no different here.
As my team approached the fire room under heavy smoke conditions, visibility was zero. We worked our way into the room extinguishing the flames engulfing the living room as we went. We vented the windows and the visibility improved quite a bit. Now the second line was with us.
The search of the other apartment on the floor had been completed. This team was lead by a Captain with whom I had fought the creature many times. I had great respect for this person and would go anywhere with this Capt. by my side. We continued into a bedroom taking down the fire, then we began pulling the ceiling and we could see the fire had worked its way into the attic.
As we were working to get the rest of the fire I suddenly felt the floor begin to give way. I felt myself falling. It was so fast there was nothing I could do! In an instant I saw a gloved hand reaching out and grasping me by the forearm. I was stopped from falling, only making it through the hole up to my knees. As I was pulled back to my feet not a word was spoken, only a glance exchanged and back to work. We evacuated the room and got to the beast from another room.
After the call was done I went to my savior to say thanks. With the gear off I found Sue and gave her a big hug! "Thanks for the lift," I said. And we laughed about it. I didn't mention that this Firefighter was female because it shouldn't matter. I still don't know how she did it, 'cause I'm not a small guy. But she did!
When I needed it most, it was the gloved hand of a Firefighter that saved me from a fate unknown. For that I will always love her. My point is "when the gear goes on we are not Men or Women, we are Firefighters".
Stay Safe my Brothers & Sisters and Take Care of Each Other!
by Charles Angione
We were fighting a fire in an abandoned frame apartment house on East Sixth Street one bitter cold morning. The alarm had come in shortly after roll call and was "going good" when we pulled up. "Any squaters inside? Let's ventilate that front second floor bedroom...." Engine 2, first due at this address, had pulled a 1 3/4-inch attack line to the heavily involved first floor.
Inside, adrenaline overcomes pain, as the company humps hose and advances through blistering heat, thick smoke and treacherous darkness. They stay low, and their raised voices are muffled by their face masks. "Okay, there she is to your left...open up...that's it...move the nozzle, sweep it...way to go...let's move in some more...Hey Loo, we've got fire in the walls...watch that hole in the floor...let's open that wall...." The fire is in several walls at once. They will be here awhile.
Engine 4 is assigned to lay a feed line and then follow with a second handline to check extension on the second floor. Rescue 1 begins its primary search on the fire floor while Truck 3 is searching and venting upstairs. Engine 5 gets its assignment enroute. Pretty soon that company has a third line backing up the first.
Soon the fire was knocked down, and I was considering radioing an updated progress report, making the fire an "under control." I was in my usual place outside in front of the derelict fire building, trying to keep warm and beginning to think about some hot coffee and a cigarette. No civilians remained out on the street watching us fight the fire. Relatively few of them, in fact, had been outside even when it was going good. This was fairly unusual and, doubtless, partially due to the numbing cold weather. It may also have been because fires in this decrepit neighborhood were no longer a novelty.
At some point I happened to look behind me. That is when I saw the handsome black-and-tan German shepherd sitting quietly on the corner watching intently. His eyes turned to consider me for a moment and then returned his attention to the fire building. Shepherds have particularly expressive faces, and his showed concern. "Well, we've got one fire buff out here, anyway," I thought.
Later on, I was doing my walk-through. The guys had done a nice job of keeping the fast moving fire confined to the first floor. Our rescue company had done a primary search of the second floor, of course, when the fire was roaring downstairs, and had reported "negative victims" on his portable radio. The reason we perform a search of these abandoned buildings is that many times derelicts make their homes there. Now they were performing a secondary, more thorough, search following the knockdown of the flames.
"Rescue 1 to Command," I heard Lt. John Coppola over my portable radio. "Could you meet us in the second floor front bedroom?"
"Ten-four, Rescue. On my way."
When I had relieved some beat-up companies and briefly discussed with an officer how to organize our overhaul operation, I picked my way over the charred debris on the staircase and, dodging the water drips from above, met the company upstairs.
Before anybody said anything, I saw something on an old mattress that was lying on the floor. A medium sized longhaired mutt lay there -- dead. A closer look revealed three tiny pups lying up against her.
"We found them on the primary search, Chief. They were already dead, so we left them to complete the search of the floor." From all the signs, the fire downstairs had smoldered for hours, releasing more than enough toxic gases to kill, before it broke out and took off. The fact they were still in their apparent nesting place meant they had probably perished in their sleep, and were, in fact, dead when we got here. Still, along with the sorrow at the death of these innocent creatures, I felt a personal sense of defeat. The company's quiet soberness indicated they felt this, also. Most firefighters are familiar with death. It is our sworn enemy. We laugh and are irreverent at many things, but we take death -- any death -- very seriously, as one does a hated and respected enemy.
From where I stood I could see past the mattress out the front window. I moved closer to get a better look at the street. Yeah, there he was, sitting stoically on the corner across the street, waiting patiently for these strangers to leave so he could return to his little family, maybe a bit nervous about their welfare.
I've seen it so many times on this job: tragedy, large and small, in one form or another. Sometimes we act impervious to it, perhaps to keep it from breaking our hearts. But we never really get used to it, learning only how to handle it -- or hide it. These were not human victims, of course. They were merely dogs. And yet dogs -- especially those strays who were on their own -- do seem so remarkably, and pitifully, human at times, busily coming and going about their business, trying -- as we -- to do their duty, not always so sure what that is.
We called the humane society to remove the dead animals. It must have been a slow day, for they arrived uncharacteristically soon. Someone told one of the workers about the stray shepherd outside, but now he was gone. He may have been familiar with the dog pound's truck and was hiding out until they, too, left his place in peace. I was secretly and illogically relieved, somehow, when the animal control people left without him.
When the last remaining companies, Engine 2 and Rescue 1, were getting their equipment ready to return to service, we decided to return to quarters for some coffee. As B.J. drove the command vehicle up East Sixth Street and made a left on Scott Place, I looked behind me to see if the shepherd had returned. He was back, watching us leave, his ears pricked forward at attention as he yawned nervously. "Another one leaving," he might have been thinking. Just two more to go, and he would enter the building to find his family gone.
St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for thousands of years.
On St. Patrick's Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink, and feast—on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.
The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place not in Ireland, but in the United States. Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City on March 17, 1762. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers to reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.
Over the next thirty-five years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called "Irish Aid" societies, like the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.
Up until the mid-nineteenth century, most Irish immigrants in America were members of the Protestant middle class. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in 1845, close to a million poor, uneducated, Catholic Irish began to pour into America to escape starvation. Despised for their religious beliefs and funny accents by the American Protestant majority, the immigrants had trouble finding even menial jobs. When Irish Americans in the country's cities took to the streets on St. Patrick's Day to celebrate their heritage, newspapers portrayed them in cartoons as drunk, violent monkeys.
However, the Irish soon began to realize that their great numbers endowed them with a political power that had yet to be exploited. They started to organize, and their voting block, known as the "green machine," became an important swing vote for political hopefuls. Suddenly, annual St. Patrick's Day parades became a show of strength for Irish Americans, as well as a must-attend event for a slew of political candidates. In 1948, President Truman attended New York City 's St. Patrick's Day parade, a proud moment for the many Irish whose ancestors had to fight stereotypes and racial prejudice to find acceptance in America.
Today, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by people of all backgrounds in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Although North America is home to the largest productions, St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated in other locations far from Ireland, including Japan, Singapore, and Russia.
In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick's Day has traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government began a national campaign to use St. Patrick's Day as an opportunity to drive tourism and showcase Ireland to the rest of the world. Last year, close to one million people took part in Ireland 's St. Patrick's Festival in Dublin, a multi-day celebration featuring parades, concerts, outdoor theater productions, and fireworks shows.
St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is one of Christianity's most widely known figures. But for all his celebrity, his life remains somewhat of a mystery. Many of the stories traditionally associated with St. Patrick, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling.
It is known that St. Patrick was born in Britain to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century. He is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D. Although his father was a Christian deacon, it has been suggested that he probably took on the role because of tax incentives and there is no evidence that Patrick came from a particularly religious family. At the age of sixteen, Patrick was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family's estate. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity. (There is some dispute over where this captivity took place. Although many believe he was taken to live in Mount Slemish in County Antrim, it is more likely that he was held in County Mayo near Killala.) During this time, he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and away from people. Lonely and afraid, he turned to his religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian. (It is also believed that Patrick first began to dream of converting the Irish people to Christianity during his captivity.)
After more than six years as a prisoner, Patrick escaped. According to his writing, a voice-which he believed to be God's-spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland.
To do so, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast. After escaping to Britain, Patrick reported that he experienced a second revelation-an angel in a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary. Soon after, Patrick began religious training, a course of study that lasted more than fifteen years. After his ordination as a priest, he was sent to Ireland with a dual mission-to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish. (Interestingly, this mission contradicts the widely held notion that Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland.)
Familiar with the Irish language and culture, Patrick chose to incorporate traditional ritual into his lessons of Christianity instead of attempting to eradicate native Irish beliefs. For instance, he used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish. (Although there were a small number of Christians on the island when Patrick arrived, most Irish practiced a nature-based pagan religion. The Irish culture centered around a rich tradition of oral legend and myth. When this is considered, it is no surprise that the story of Patrick's life became exaggerated over the centuries-spinning exciting tales to remember history has always been a part of the Irish way of life.)