At least four or five times a week I come across a news story of a fire in a house where the occupants kept an inordinate number of small animals. You’ve seen them, too. They usually emphasize the line about 85 cats escaping into the neighborhood, or some such. About once a month we post one of those stories here if it has an unusual twist to it. One of the more memorable postings that we had was just this past August when we ran THIS STORY about paramedics responding to a house in Florida that had 430 creatures in it.
Over the course of your career, just about all of you will have come across at least one of these animal-hoarders and it will certainly become a topic for the day room. Whenever I see one of these stories, I am always reminded of a fire that I attended in what we jokingly dubbed “the cat house,” that was so different that I’ll never forget it. During my time as a truck officer we responded to a fire in what our part of the country calls a split-level house. That’s a 2-story home with an adjoining section of one story that is leveled midway between the other two floors. They are convenient in that there are only about 6 steps to go up or down to the next level. And for the firefighters, the passage is a perfect flue for fire travel.
The fire was in the mid-level section of the house and was rolling pretty good with the upper level, where the bedrooms are always located, completely charged with heat and thick smoke. So us truckies swarmed right into the bedrooms and started our primary search in the classical style – bellying along, kicking out and swinging the Halligan as we worked along the walls. But there was something strange about these bedrooms. As I swung my bar, it hit something kind of soft, but not a body. Reaching over, I punched it but still couldn’t figure it out. But since it wasn’t a victim, I kept on with my search. I learned later that the other guys were having the same experience. We cleared the rooms, but were still puzzled over what in the world was going on in there.
Within a few minutes, the fire was knocked down and we started ventilating the house. And as the smoke lifted we saw what these soft things were. They were those inflatable wading pools that people put in their backyards for their little children to splash around in.
Each of them was about 8 feet in diameter and about 10 inches deep. The room I was in had two of them and another bedroom had one. As the smoke cleared out, we had one of those “Oh, no!!” moments when we found out that each of them was filled (and I mean “filled”) with cat litter. That’s a rather disheartening feeling when you find out what it is you’ve been crawling around in. And it becomes one of those inconsequential things that ends up as a lifelong memory.
And we must also remember to get this equipment checked out every morning. I’ve got to get some more coffee going, too. See you back in the day room in a little while.
Of course, coffee in the day room is always better
when it comes out of a GeezerCup.
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