Of Tragedy and Laughter

Responded to a house fire yesterday evening. The fire had been started by the three-year old grandson of the owners. He had been playing with a lighter in a closet. Sadly, this wasn't the first time they'd caught him playing with lighters.

The fire department went on location and made an excellent stop on the fire, confining the fire damage to the area in and around the master bedroom. The rest of the home sustained smoke and water damage, but with work it could be habitable.

There are two holes in the roof above the master bedroom which we cut to ventilate the house. Civilians often don't understand the reason firefighters are purposely cutting a hole in a roof. It often seems like we are causing more damage than we're preventing. The reason for the hole is to cause the toxic gases to vent out of the roof at a point of our choosing, generally nearest the fire. If we didn't do this, the fire would race along the attic until it found a vent point. This could cause the fire to spread to other areas of the structure.

Anyway, we almost had to have the homeowner arrested for trying to get back into his own home before we had declared the fire out and the structure safe. Twice we had to remove him from inside the house while we were still conducting firefightering operations. He was finally told not to enter again until we gave him permission or he would be arrested. He tried to argue that we couldn't do that since it was his own house. Ummm.... yes we can. Until the FD releases it, it is their fire scene and they have ultimate control.

I can understand this man's frustration, and we're not trying to be @$$holes, but it only hinders our operations to have him going inside while we are still trying to extinguish the fire. Plus, we do this for his safety.

After the fire, the man's sons became upset with some of the firefighters who they felt were laughing about the loss of the home. While there was laughter, it was in no way related to the fire.

Some may ask why we were laughing. Firefighting is a very dangerous job. There are nearly as many firefighters killed in the line of duty every year as there are law enforcement officers. Fighting fire places a person in a very tense situation, one where they must act in a manner that goes against natural instinct. After all, firefighters are rushing into a burning building when everyone else, including the rats and roaches, is rushing out.

After the fire this tension needs to be released. And we release it with laughter. We laugh about someone's hunting mis-adventures. We laugh about getting the firetruck stuck in the yard. We laught about a lot of things. But we don't laught about the tragedy at hand. We see these day in and day out and know the heartbreak involved.

So we laugh. We laugh trying to remember the good times, because we see so much of the bad....