Magnificent Failures

My fire academy instructor held a drill in which each team was given a task to do and then given conflicting orders to see how they would handle it. For the record, when it happened to my team I pointed out the conflict of orders to the instructor and asked which he wanted us to handle. He just yelled at us and sent us on our way. We, along with most of the other crews were able to handle all the tasks assigned if not in their original order. After the drill, he deemed us all "magnificent failures". We accomplished all the objectives just as we had been trained and were successful in all operations. But the failure to acknowledge the conflicting orders was the goal of the drill (hence why he ignored me when I pointed that out). We had a fire not too long ago where that term popped into my head again.

My district is pretty quiet and we don't get a lot of fires. The closest two stations are so close that they are pretty much right on top of us when we respond and if we don't get out of the station quick enough we could get beat into our own district. On this day I happened to have an overtime captain and my firefighter was off on a trade so I was the only regular crew member.

The tones went off at o'dark thirty, somewhere between midnight and two a.m. When I heard the address I knew just where it was and it was a house fire in my district! I located the hydrant on the map, jumped into my gear, and hopped into the engine. I was dressed, with my radio in my pocket and ready to fire up the rig and drive out when the captain climbed into his seat. I looked back to confirm the firefighter was ready to go only to find out that he wasn't there. I waited a few seconds staring at the door to the station expecting him to come running through it any second, all the while mentally ticking away the time we were wasting. He didn't show.

I jumped out of the rig and ran back into the station. As I turned the corner to the dorms I saw that his door was open and the light was on. Oh thank god, he must have gone through the other door to the apparatus bay. Just to be sure I called his name and continued down the hall. I peered into his room and there he was, sound asleep in his bed with the lights on and the dispatch radio giving a follow up to responding rigs.

 

I called his name again from the doorway saying we had to go. Nothing. Are you kidding me? I marched into his room, grabbed him by the leg and shook him. Not surprisingly, I scared the living hell out of him. He snapped awake with me yelling, "Get up! We got a fire!"

I went back to the rig, fired it up and waited for him to hurriedly get dressed and on board. I took off for the address and as I rounded the corner before the final turn I saw no other rigs in sight. We might be first in after all. I made the turn and saw Engine 50 pulling up in front of the house. There was definitely at least a room and contents fire going on. Had I known that we were second in I would have come from the other end of the block and brought these guys a water supply. So now I pulled past E50 and parked on the opposite side of the street where I thought I was out of the way and started to bottle up to go to work. Of course, since things were going so well, I happened to park right where the engine coming from the other direction with the water supply needed to go and had to get back in and reposition the rig to get out of their way. Meanwhile the rest of the assignment was arriving and going to work.

E50 had a quick knock down on what turned out to be a single room and contents fire. Not much of a fire, but it still should have been ours. We wound up on a hoseline outside hosing down the fence and smoldering wood pile on the Delta side of the house. Not very interesting. The overtime captain was content because it meant he didn't have to do the report and the firefighter was mortified and very apologetic.

We finished soaking down the wood pile and went inside to check out the damage as the truck crew was clearing the roof. Just as I stepped in the front door I heard a big crash outside. I came back outside to see the ladder that was put up from the driveway to the roof lying on the ground next to the firefighter who had been climbing down it. I guess he tried to come down without someone footing the ladder for him and it shot out from beneath him. He was surprisingly unhurt if embarrassed.

 

So, the fire went out, all tasks completed, and no injuries to the public or the fire crews but quite a few errors were made. So, magnificent failures indeed.