Another day, another garage fire

Towards the end of my 12-hour shift on the ambulance yesterday, a local fire department got a call for a garage fire - fully involved, flames showing - building not attached to home.

It happens. Lawn mowers put away hot. Wood stoves left unattended. Oily rags self-igniting in the trash can. Who knows?

In the station, we listened to all the radio chatter. Another fire department was called for tanker and manpower assist. Then another called for a RIT team (rapid intervention team - a group of four firefighters whose only responsibility is to stand by and be prepared for an emergency rescue of an injured or trapped firefighter).

It all seemed a bit much for a garage fire. Then they called us for rehab, where we stage at the fire scene and are responsible for assessing and monitoring firefighters that might overexert themselves or some other medical problem. #1 killer of firefighters is a heart attack.

We could see the smoke column as we got closer and then saw the flames. Ahh... A large, story and a half pole barn - the new 'garage' for rural America. The guy wasn't a farmer, but he needed space for his lawn tractor, snowmobiles, trailers - man toys.

So we sat in the cab of the rig, watching the snow fall and the building fall down in flames. Occasionally a firefighter would be ordered by the incident commander to come over and get hooked up to the monitor to check his blood pressure and pulse.

Then it was done, and we went back to the station. Another exciting day as an EMT!