Background: I had to write a narrative for my college English class, so I figured I would share a fire academy experience with others and see what you think about it.


Saturday came quicker than I had expected it to. It was finally here. The moment I have been waiting for. Actually it was the moment that our entire fire academy had been waiting on. Our chance to enter the burn building at the training academy and tame the Beast.

The class had already gone rapelling off the 5 story tower which I must say can be considered as a terror and a thrill at the same time. We also fought the exterior fires; both the christmas tree and the vehicle fire. Although these both were hot they in no way could compare with being confined in an enclosed structure with the dragon trying to free itself.

Beep! Beep! Beep! I looked over at my alarm clock still half asleep and read the time....0600. I so wished I could just slam the snooze button down and get another 15 minutes of precious sleep, but I knew I had things to do that would contradict my wanting to sleep in. I sat up and thought about what the day was going to bring and all of the sudden it hit me, today we were going to be fighting live fires. I jumped out of bed quicker than I should have and gave myself a really bad head rush. I jumped in the shower, brushed my teeth, and got dressed in my PT uniform. I slammed down a quick bowl of Lucky Charms cereal and ran into the garage to get my bunker gear. Bunker bag in hand I grabbed 3 Gatorades, Lemonade flavor and threw them into the bunker bag. I found my Dad and told him I was leaving and when I came back home I would have either conquered or been eaten by the dragon.

I threw my gear into the back of my truck and jumped in. Before I took off to the TA, I loaded my Ladder 49 soundtrack and then started to head out. On the way there the song I had been waiting for started to play. I just knew hearing "Fire" by the Ohio Players it was on! I arrived at the TAand grabbed my gear bag. I set it down at the front of the formation and started emptying its contents. One yellow helmet with an intact shield...Check!, Bunker coat with gloves and protective hood....Check!, Bunker pants....Check! I dropped everything into place and got ready for physical training to begin. My fellow cadets started arriving and it was time to begin PT. Our lead instructor at the TA, "Chief" walked over and as always got us hyped up and motivated for the day ahead of us. The PT finished quickly only having to do push ups and stretches before taking off on our almost 2 mile run around the park.

We finished the run together even though our slowest runner dragged the whole class down to an almost walking pace. By the time we completed the run we were soaked with sweat. Our staff gave us 5 minutes to go get changed and dressed into the proper academy attire. After getting dressed I took my position again at the head of the formation and gave the command to "Fall In!" All 18 of my fellow cadets formed up in anticipation of upcoming "Bunker drills". Chief yelled out "1 minute or less or towers! Got that?" Then the fatal words were heard in the same way that you could hear a needle dropping in a quiet room. "Go!"

I tore off my boots as quickly as I could. Tossed my helmet and gloves off my pants and coat. I jumped into my boots and as I started pulling up my suspenders....it began. "15 Seconds" I threw on my hood and grabbed my coat and turned into it. "30 Seconds" I started buckling and snapping all of the components and I reached down and grabbed my helmet and quickly put it on. "45 Seconds!" I was almost there all I have now is 2 simple gloves to put on my hands, but wait.... my hands are all sweaty and the gloves don't want to go on like they should. No! Not towers, not the 240 Steps of Death. I am almost done and I only have half a glove to go and then I hear "55, 56, 57" I raise both of my hands to signify I am done and go to the nearest instructor to go get checked. Success!!! But wait, I look around to find out that some of my fellow class mates aren't ready yet. Why? What happened? We already know what's next. "Chief" doesn't even need to say a word, instead all he has to do is point at the 5 story structure that was silently calling out names from each and every step. Because we are a team, we all saw 5 fingers held up letting us know that we had to do 5 towers before live fires. I felt like yelling out "Going up! ding ding as if we were in an elevator" Now it wouldn't be so bad granted I don't weigh that much, but add on the full gear to include the SCBA and as we all know thats an extra 85 pounds to lug up those infernal 240 steps on each tower completed. Thats a total of 1200 stairs when you do the math. By the 5th and final tower my ankles and calves were killing me and everyone was showing signs of being sore. Bad thing was we hadn't even the Beast yet.

After a 15 minute rest break we were told to set up the engines and deploy all the hoselines for live fire evolutions. "Chief" told us that we were going to be confronting the Beast on 2 fronts, both a kitchen fire and an upstairs bedroom on fire. Our moment was finally upon us. We spilt up into attack crews and I was handed the nozzle first. I was now the slayer of the beast. It was now our teams to tame or be tamed ourselves. My back up squeezed my back and gave the signal that he was ready to go. We moved forward into the burn room with the charged hoseline waiting to meet our tormentor.

All of the sudden it showed its true colors and there was no mistaking the Beast had arrived. You could hear it hiss and crackle. You could see the briliant red, yellow, and orange hues. There was no doubting the intense heat of the confined flames that were rolling up to the ceiling as if they were performing a choreographed dance. As if in slow motion we were at the doorway to the Gates of Hell battling an unleashed and untamed beast. I reached forward on the nozzle that I held like a knight weilding Excalibur and I slowly opened it up into the dancing flames that were overhead. 2 quick bursts above and then as quick as it started; it was over with a vengance. I attacked it with a modified power cone using extreme force and the Beast was no more. My partner and I manuevered the hose effortlessly around the fire, making sure it was unable to breathe any longer. It was then that there was silence. We rounded the stairwell and we were able to see a reflection of red on the walls.

I motioned to my partner and yelled "Up there" while sounding like Darth Vader from behind my SCBA mask. My partner and I started up the stairwell taking one step at a time. The hose felt alot heavier trying to carry it and our gear was starting to take its toll now being even heavier since it got wet. My mind started thinking back to the towers earlier. Continually we pulled each step one by one. There were over 30 stairs to get to the top. After we reached the top we saw it. Our kitchen fire had taken steroids and was now a full blown bedroom on fire. The super intense heat made us want to cringe. I felt my ears beginning to burn inside my nomex hood. I started wandering if this was what 1000 degrees felt like. Although we knew it was only training, it felt like the real thing. This fire was a whole lot more intense and had psychotic movments wanting to move above and behind us off the ceiling. The only thing that came to my mind was "Flashover". It was time! It felt like we were in the battle for everything, there weren't any cards left to be played on the table. Our whole hand was dealt in front of us. It was all or none. We were not going to let this one flash on us. I looked right into the face of the dragon and I smiled knowing it would soon be over. I opened the nozzle once more and shot the water directly into its heart (the base of the flames). We moved the hose around and sprayed water everywhere that the fire was hiding and finally wiped it off the face of existence. If you really listened, you could almost hear it cry out when the water vanquished it.

It was finally over! At least for our rotation that is. The credits could start rolling on another chapter of my life. We came to the fight and slayed the mighty Beast!, as "We are the Champions" silently played in the background.