Poland Fire Chief: A Short Story

“Crash!” flames were everywhere there was wreckage and debris everywhere and I realized a plane had crashed into the wall. I was on the floor and I reached for Gabbie but she wasn’t moving. I felt to see if she was breathing and fortunately she was. I looked around and saw Bill, Tammy, Ted, Charlie, Jen, and all my other co-workers and some were moving but others weren’t I crawled to Bill and he wasn’t breathing. I was coughing from the smoke in the air and was crying. The fire stung my skin. I crawled to Gabbie, I couldn’t see, she woke up and started to panic. I calmed her down and we found other co-workers but some died. I felt like the floor was gonna gave in any second so we didn’t move. Huddled together we thought we were gonna die, we sat in silence, realizing the end, thinking about the past.

After separating from the military I became a Paramedic and found a job in East St. Louis Illinois. While there I was confronted with many tragedies. One in particular occurred on a hot summer night. My partner and I were working a midnight to 7 am shift when we were dispatched to a motor vehicle collision with injuries. We arrive and found a small maroon colored car upside down in the roadway on fire. As we exited the rig I heard the loud and unmistakable sounds of two occupants screaming for help. Only having a small fire extinguisher and no rescue tool we attempted to either extinguish the fire or extricate the occupants. I remember the screams getting louder and more intense as every attempt failed. Finally, the small fire extinguisher ran out of

After he patted out the fire on his hair, he said, he got down on the ground and groped in the dark. “I thought I found one of them once,” he said, “but it was a doll.” He couldn’t bear the heat any longer. “I felt myself passing out,” he said. Finally, he stumbled down the corridor and out the front door, trying to catch his breath. He saw Diane Barbee and yelled for her to call the Fire Department. After she left, he insisted, he tried without success to get back

The heat was intense that evening. Almost like our own skin was melting. We were eating dinner, talking about our day when suddenly a gunshot followed by screaming were heard outside. We carried on with our meal not even moving a muscle to help because this happened almost everyday. Things have gotten worse in our town. It was silent throughout dinner. I looked at the wall, watching how torn the dark black wallpaper had gotten. How scared we were to even leave our house. It was living in a war zone. You never know what will happen next.

There is a fire at my dad's company in the shop. Looking to my left, I see a big black cloud of smoke that looks as though it is swallowing a skyscraper. I can only imagine a big orange blob of fire eating away at our family company big enough to see from miles afar. I can’t help but to think of my grandfather who died when I was two, who started my family company. And my uncle, who died before I was born and helped a lot with the business. The thought of some of my few memorials of them burning into millions of ashes being blown down the streets of Grand Rapids sends a horrifying chill up and down my spine. I start to attempt to gather up my thoughts when I freak out. There could have been people in the fire! As we get in the car I realize just how bad the fire is or could be. However, with a car full of eight people, it is very chaotic. Finally, I have enough confusion and can't help but

I was called on duty that night at the New York Fire Station. When I turned on my walkie talkie all I could hear where fire trucks and ambulance cars and police cars. I put my gear on as fast as I could. When I hoped in my truck my wife Jennifer called.

Riiiinnng!!! The sound pierced the ears of every firefighter in the building. Nate looked up from his meal and locked eyes with his partner Dave. Simultaneously, they both turned and ran over to the pole. One by one the fire fighters slid down, got their equipment on, and ran to the nearest plane while others ran to the trucks. Planes and trucks took off and were ready in minutes to fight the fire and send guys into the air. Nate and Dave discussed their plan and then, they jumped. Time was short and ticking, and they needed to slow down the forest fire with wood piles and dirt blockades. All day they worked and the fire kept coming. Resources were getting low and they could not slow the fire down and eventually were forced out. Allowing the

My whole town was destroyed. Buildings were collapsing and wolves were howling in the background. My body felt heavy, as if someone had filled my veins with lead instead of blood. Fire and smoke started to cloud my vision, making it hard to see. Looking down, I knew I was in a parking lot. The white lines were barely visible and the harder I tried to see, the worse the smoke would get.

As a kid I looked up to my twin brothers, Sandy and Randy, who were 19 years older than me. When I was around 13 years old, I started tagging along with my brother, Sandy, who was a volunteer firefighter. I loved running calls with Sandy, and knew that I would be a firefighter when I grew up. I will never forget the time I went to a house fire with my brother. It was like yesterday. The fire pager went off. Sandy turned on his red light, and we took off in his truck. Before I knew it, we pulled up to a house with fire shooting out the first floor window, and Sandy went to work as a firefighter. That was it. From that point on, I knew I would be a firefighter.

Night time begins to fall and the firefighters begin to lay down and try to get at least a few hours of sleep. Imagine finally falling asleep after laying restless for hours, then all of a sudden the lights turn on and the loud voice begins to scream over the intercom again. It’s 3am and you’re expected to be out of bed and ready to go put your body on the line in an unreasonable amount of time. Not knowing if you’ll get a chance to lay back down again before the sun comes up.

Jackie couldn't stop tossing and turning. She was dreaming, the same dream she had every night for the past year. Every time she would lay down in bed, she knew it would happen. That didn’t stop it from being horrific and have her wake up out of breath and some nights, screaming. In her dream she could see the smoke rise in the air and fan out over ceiling and form a blanket of death, next, she heard the screams. They were the worst part of her dream, they echoed in her ears, pleading her to help, to try to move. Instead she stood frozen in front of her parent’s room. She could see the flames start lick the bottom of the door. The smoke poured out the newly burned holes and filled the hallway. The screams stopped. She knew what that meant. This was the 365th dream, the 365th time she witnessed her parent’s burn to death in front of her. One year of reliving the events of

Firefighters and Marines are most definitely a special breed of people. They put their lives on the line for us every day. But this particular firefighter and Marine have a unique story about something that changed both of

“Get up! Getup!” My sister yelled piercing my ears with her high voice. I opened my eyes slowly trying to adjust to the rooms musty lighting and immediately a whiff of something burning had overcome me.Something between a mix of a saturday night campfire that we had every month and the burnt toast that my sister had mastered burning. I wasn’t very fond of the smell, it was too overwhelming and strong. I’m wasn’t one of those people that like the smell of gas or fire. Wait anyway why was something burning? It couldn’t be more than 3:00 in the morning. The sun couldn’t have been up yet. I tried to get my eyes adjusted to the light but I realize there was no light. It’s dark, my sister obviously hadn’t bothered to turn on any light. I tried to look around in the dark but anything that would have been in my sight of vision is blocked by my sisters figure that was leaning over me. I try to look at the window shining in the darkness to see the time of day. Dark as coal like I thought, it wasn’t morning.

In summer 2009 in Cyprus, I was walking home, with some friends, from a beach soccer game. A few blocks from my house, we saw flashing emergency light. Of course, we were curious; we went straight on to see what was going on. A neighbour’s house was burning on fire. It was crazy watching the firefighters try to control the fire. All emergency crews were helping each other. Some officers were guarding and making sure no one entered the house or got too close but what was going on with the other officers and the family really took my attention and my heart! One of their children was lost. Two officers calmed the parents and kept them from being too hysterical. Officers were talking to someone else reporting the missing child. The little girl

My brother and I Volunteer firefighters and station 38. We get a decent amount of fire calls but almost all of them are false alarms. But when that pager goes off there 's nothing better then the adrenalin rush that you get. There was only one problem, and that was that Matt was with us and he was not a firefighter so he could not go with us. My brother kicks us out of his car and turns on his lights and speeds down the street. I look at Matt and he knew that I wanted to go so he said “yeah i 'll go home.”