Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505300098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They can glance out the open back doors of the No. 2 firehouse and spot trouble before the alarm sounds.
Dark columns of smoke, some arsonist's evil doings, rose up many times the last month along the station's panoramic city view off Williamson Road.
In back-to-back shifts, No. 2's men battled two of the fiercest fires: at Claytor Memorial Clinic in Gainsboro, and at a warehouse downtown.
Standing outside after supper during their first 24-hour shift after the fires, their eyes kept scanning the horizon for smoke or flame. They were drawn back to their fears, just like when you can't quit staring at something ugly.
One of the men pointed downtown and pretended to see smoke. A visiting district chief, Pat Taylor, jerked his head up. "Just kidding," the jokester said, briefly releasing a tension that wouldn't end that night.
It wouldn't end until the seven men of C shift went on a four-day break Thursday morning. The stress will be back today, when they report for duty again.
Fires are hell for the people who lose their property or their lives.
They're hell, too, for the people who try to save them.
No. 2's C shift fought some of Roanoke's biggest fires in the past - the Hotel Earle fire in 1991, the fire that wiped out Total Action Against Poverty's headquarters on Shenandoah Avenue in 1989, and the one at Singer Furniture in 1985.
Until the last nine days, they hadn't been on a high-profile fire for a long time.
They stay busy with small blazes, toxic spills handled by their haz-mat team, and all kinds of other emergencies. They take a firetruck all over the northern half of Roanoke, stabilizing the sick and injured until rescue squads tied up elsewhere can get to them.
Firefighters alternate 24 hours on and 24 hours off for three cycles, then are off for four days. C shift fought the clinic arson May 20, then the suspicious warehouse fire last Monday.
The run of fires and the possibility of more arsons made No. 2's firefighters jumpy, like they were tempting fate just by being on duty. They look for arson to strike again.
"It's actually more stressful knowing it's coming," said firefighter Lewie Kennett. "That bothers you almost as bad as having a fire. After the last two nights, we're looking for it tonight."
"Speak for yourself," said Lt. Jay Ransome, 41. "I don't care if I don't ever see another one."
District Chief Johnny Johnson had his ears and tonsils checked by doctors at the Claytor Clinic when he was growing up on Gainsboro's North Jefferson Street. "I can remember that place like it was yesterday."
With 29 years in the Fire Department and as C shift's lead man for all city fires north of the railroad, Johnson, 54, was in command when the alarm rang out at Station 2 to rush to the clinic.
An investigator told him there was a scent akin to charcoal lighter fluid at a spot in the adjacent storefront where the fire began. There were about four points of origin in all. A Molotov cocktail and a wrapped propane tank were in the basement, but hadn't gone off.
"Our men went in right from the very start in the clinic," Johnson said. They tried to keep the fire out of the old medical building. Engines came from five stations, and ladder trucks from three. "We were trying our best to save it."
What they and people watching from the ground below didn't realize was that the fire had spread into the clinic through a void between its roof and the second-floor ceiling. "The fire was already in there," Johnson said.
They tried an interior attack with hoses. Station 2's Ronnie Campbell, 27, was upstairs aiming a 11/2-inch leader line when Station 5 firefighter Mike "Red" Armstrong's feet broke through the burning floor.
Armstrong, 31, laughed at first. Then he slid down to his waist. "I thought I was going to get the express route to the basement." Campbell and Station 9 firefighter Randy Smith each grabbed a strap of Armstrong's air pack and pulled him back up. Armstrong wrenched his wrist slamming his hand down to brake his descent.
Firefighters carry about 60 pounds with all their "turnout gear" - suits, helmets, boots and air packs - all even heavier when wet. They haul heavy equipment, too. A 50-foot section of fire hose weighs 35 pounds dry and 83 pounds wet.
The men sweated hard, the heat was so intense. "The average person will lose 10 pounds in a fire," Kennett said.
The clinic fire brought back bad memories.
Kennett, 42, suffered the worst injuries of his 16-year career in the 1984 fire that destroyed the Claytor medical family's 22-room home behind the clinic. A backdraft in the attic knocked him and another firefighter down the steps. Burns around his face kept Kennett out of work for 2 1/2 weeks.
At the clinic, Johnson ordered the men out when fire got between them and the exit. Later, they went back in. Though they are not supposed to use more than two of the 30-minute tanks, Johnson said the men kept getting new ones and going back inside.
"That particular fire, it was too far gone from the beginning," Armstrong said.
Spectators thought there was hydrant trouble. Water was abruptly cut off, and some heard a scanner transmission about a dry hydrant. Fire officials said at a news briefing that there was a temporary air lock at a hydrant, but it was fixed quickly. Also, they said, a hose on a ladder truck was shut off when men were inside. High-pressure water can scald, drown or badly injure firefighters in a "surround and drown," as they call the pumping of massive amounts of water on a building.
Station 2's men and firefighters from other stations were at the clinic from about 8:30 that Saturday night until 2 Sunday morning. Before they left, they packed up 1,100 feet of fire hose to be ready for the next fire.
Back at the station, they spent another hour sanitizing breathing gear and cleaning axes, other equipment - and their bodies. They have to stay clean in case they're called to help somebody sick.
"Hogs to the trough," Capt. Charlie Fochtman growled over the intercom, calling Station 2 to Wednesday's supper.
The men take turns cooking. Oscar Smith gets the best reviews. But Fochtman - "Fochtmeister" to his buddies - didn't catch too much grief for his roast chicken, cheesy pasta, beans and rice. "The Hotel Roanoke wanted me bad," he joshed.
Firefighters don't cook at every Roanoke firehouse, but enough do that the city fire department probably represents more male cooks than any outfit in town. (There still are no women firefighters in the city.)
At home, firefighters are obsessed with fire safety. Ransome has four or five smoke detectors, and at least that many fire extinguishers.
They know too well what fire can do.
"I tell you one thing," Johnson said. "I don't want to see that [fire] truck sitting in front of my house."
Monday night was Station 2's second killer shift in a row.
It was about 10:30 - their bedtime, when they get one. An inferno was hollowing out a warehouse downtown. They went flying out into the night and were gone for hours, pumping 2,400 gallons of water a minute on the building. Then a call about an early-morning arson whisked them to a Patterson Avenue home before their shift ended.
The men at Station 2 have heard fire spectators say they're slow getting water on burning buildings.
No firefighters wanted to be quoted by name, but they said cutbacks over many years have left them understaffed. There usually are three men running the ladder trucks. Firefighters say they need five to do the best job.
Having fancy hoses, pumpers and ladders at a fire does no good without people to operate them, they said. With one man hooking up at a hydrant and another pulling off hoses, sometimes few are left to make an aggressive interior attack on a building.
A consultant said last year that while Roanoke's Fire Department gets to fires quickly, it needs to look at how long it takes firefighters to place their trucks, suit up, drag hoses and then spray water. That's what spectators see taking so long, and firefighters share the frustration.
Grumbled a man at Station 2, "You never hear nothing about manpower."
Ransome was spraying down the warehouse at Williamson Road and Bullitt Avenue on Monday night when he got a tap on the shoulder. It was his wife, Sandy. She was getting off her nursing shift at nearby Community Hospital.
She's getting an associate's degree in nursing. With her school and work and his job, Ransome hadn't seen her much lately.
Nearly every firefighter has another trade. Days off, they mow lawns, paint houses or install central air conditioning, gutters or swimming pools.
Many need extra money for their families. Firefighters earn $20,820 to $30,819; lieutenants, $25,307 to $31,384; captains, $29,296 to $43,366.
Ransome raises black Angus cattle at his Bedford County home.
He doesn't sleep well at the firehouse. Buzzers and bells go off all night long. Loudspeakers blare out every big and little call across the city. A faulty fire alarm goes off miles away, and Station 2 hears a dispatcher tell all about it.
On duty, most firefighters have sensitive ears. They know the sound of every kind of siren. Kennett jumps when he hears a buzzer at a Peters Creek car wash. It sounds just like the one at the station that signals he's heading to a fire.
At home, Ransome sleeps deeply. He rarely hears an alarm clock, no matter how many he sets.
Wednesday night to Thursday morning was a quiet shift for the C team. Just a false alarm at an apartment complex and an ammonia leak at the Coke plant downtown.
No arsons.
At 4:30 a.m., back from Coca-Cola, Kennett was relieved. "We won't have anything more tonight," he said. "All the crazy people are asleep."
During that anxious shift, the men talked about what they go through and how people are disappointed that they can't put out fires in an instant.
They want people to know they enter a hall of unknowns on every fire.
Last year, Ransome was on a routine basement fire in Northwest Roanoke when he noticed a can of LP gas, like the ones used with patio grills. He touched it. It was hot as Hades. He got the fire out before it exploded. If it had, he said, "It would have taken the house out."
And him, too.
"We're not God," Ransome said. "We do the best we can."
by CNB