In memory of
Curtis J. Cook

Outside, I prepare to enter the house. I am wearing nearly 40 pounds of protective clothing, including an air tank. The outside temperature is already in the 80s. My mask is fogged over. I can’t see. I twist the respirator valve into place and take a breath. Cool air enters my lungs. The air defogs my mask. We’re going in. I take a deep breath and follow the firefighters to the door.

Smoke rolls out as they open the door. We are swallowed in a cloud as we enter the house. Even though I am barely a foot through the front door, I may as well be ten feet. Visibility is near zero. Perception immediately disappears in a smoke-filled environment. To my right, I see the dim light of a small fire. The fire crew quickly douses the blaze and its orienting light. I follow the team forward, into the smoke. I was told to use the wall as a guide. I can’t tell walls from doors. I inch forward. My guide grabs me and pulls me into the smoke.

1960 SUN Staff Writer, Eric Aikin, suits up under the watchful eye of Junior Capt. Mitch Hubbard in preparation for getting up close and personal with a real fire situation.

Visibility worsens as the smoke gets thicker. Flashlights reflect eerily. The screeching of a smoke detector mingles with muffled shouts and warning alarms from the firefighter’s air packs. The sounds blend into a cacophony, adding to the surreal atmosphere inside the house.

I get hustled into a room away from where the team is fighting the fire. Although the smoke there is less dense, it is still difficult to see. Among others with me in the room is a firefighter who fell entering the house. The fireman went down in a puddle of water on the linoleum floor. The team continued forward until they realized they lost a member. They immediately radioed the Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) waiting outside. The RIT wastes no time. Inside the room is a well-rehearsed chaos. The RIT is trained for thissort of chaos. They enter the house, using hand-held thermal imagining devices. They locate the missing firefighter. The RIT exits the house just as quickly, taking the firefighter with them.

The hose crew continues their search of the burning structure. They operate with the expectation of finding somebody trapped inside. Once they determine a room is clear of people and fire, it is closed off to prevent flare-ups or spreading. I stand as far out of their way as possible - a difficult task in the cramped hallways and bedrooms.

In the corner of a bedroom, the team locates the fire’s origin. The temperature in the room is dramatically higher than the other rooms. I can feel the heat though my protective gear. The heat is similar to that from an open oven: it surrounds you, engulfs you. It is hotter than any oven I have felt.

There are almost visible thermal layers in the room. Near the floor, the temperature is less than half of what it is just six feet higher. A thin layer of air still exists at floor level. Enough air for a person to breathe if they had to. Higher, the smoke would cause suffocation.

The crew has two options of addressing the fire. They can spray the water directly onto the fire or they can use an indirect method. In the indirect method, a wide stream of water is directed above the flames. The heat from the fire turns the water to steam. The steam essentially smothers the fire.

The indirect method minimizes water damage and prevents “splashing” the fire, but is potentially deadly to anyone in the room because of the intense heat generated by the steam. I stand back, behind the crew, outside the room. The firefighters conclude the room is clear of other people. They use the indirect method. As quickly as it started, the fire is out.

The sound of a generator breaks through the smoke. A high-power fan forces air into the house and forces smoke out. The air thins and walls slowly come into focus. I follow the firefighters out of the house. The entire operation took less than 15 minutes.

My venture into a burning house came the weekend of July 6 and 7. Mitch Hubbard, Ponderosa Fire Department’s (PVFD) junior captain, agreed to allow me to suit up and accompany his men and women into the house so I could experience, first-hand, some of what a firefighter sees when they go inside a burning house.

The actual training started June 29, the week before the house fire. In the PVFD training room, Mitch fitted me with complete firefighter’s gear: insulated pants, jacket, gloves, everything. Standing inside an air-conditioned room, I practiced putting everything on.

First the boots and pants, then a protective hood, then the jacket. After the clothing was on, I slung the self-contained breathing apparatus over my shoulders and cinched it in place. Next, I donned the mask, pulling the four straps tight to make sure I had a snug fit. Otherwise smoke would penetrate the mask, negating its purpose. Last, I pulled on a pair of gloves. I now had on nearly 40 pounds of gear. It had taken me several minutes to get dressed. Mitch told me the average firefighter could put everything on in less than 80 seconds.

Mitch turned on my air tank and showed me how to fit the valve onto the mask. I clicked it into place, isolating myself from the outside world. I took a breath. The air flowed in. There is a slight claustrophobic feeling inside the gear. It takes a while to get used to. Despite the air conditioning, I was sweating profusely inside the heavy clothing. As I pulled the gear off, sweat dripped from where it had puddled in my mask.

The night of July 6, I joined about 20 firefighters at a safety briefing. Firefighter Gerry Matthews opened with words about search and rescue techniques. “This is about saving your own,” he said.

PVFD Capt. Donny Lively elaborated on search and rescue, the theme of the weekend training session. Lively stressed right- and left-handed wall searches, where the firefighters follow walls during a search in a zero-visibility environment. This creates an organized system that allows firefighters to check for people trapped inside a building. It also provides firefighters with a sense of orientation: if they follow a wall around a room, theoretically, they will end up back where they began. Should they get completely separated from their crew, firefighters are told to follow the hose. Following the hose will lead them either back to their crew or out of the building.

The house that would be burned in the training exercise had been condemned and transferred to PVFD through an agreement with Harris County.

The real fire part came early on the morning of July 7. Right away, I suited up and followed Mitch and the four-person team into the house. I came out with a new appreciation for the job firefighters do. I have faced some unruly situations in my life, but I have never been where I could not see my hand in front of my face... or in a situation where I enter a burning house not knowing what I will find inside.

As I soon discovered, a small fire can easily fill a large house with smoke. People inside can panic and get trapped. But training makes the difference. A firefighter enters the burning structure, making sure people are safe, making sure the fire is extinguished and, ultimately, making sure they go home at the end of the day.

Eric Aikin, an alumni of Texas A&M, is a reporter for The 1960 Sun. Before moving to Houston in 1998, he lived in California where he was a police officer and an occupational safety specialist.