Free Firetrap by Earl Emerson Page A

leading to the second floor. We’re going to need another crew and more lines.”
    I ask if they are separate fires, and he says they appear to be. I know then we have an arson, and with so much fire on their side, I’m reluctant to use a fan on my side.
    I have Ladder 7 ventilate the roof. Fire in the stairs, I figure rooftop ventilation is the way to go. Of course, it wasn’t going to do much for the conditions on the first floor, where Ladder 12 and Engine 13 were searching. Then one of the members from Ladder 3 comes over with a couple more Latinos, and they tell me there’s two additional kids missing. A couple of little boys. I give that information to Captain Ohman on Engine 13, and he radios back that they’re not making any headway inside, that it’s really hot and smoky, that there are a lot of spaces to search.
    About this time the entire Latino contingent more or less swamps the command post. I mean, there’s thirty of them—kids, too. They’re chattering a mile a minute and crying and getting in my way, and I can hardly understand a word any of them are saying. The cops see what’s going on and start clearing them away, but by then I’ve missed a couple of radio messages, so I have to backtrack with the dispatcher. It turns into a real mess.
    About this time Engine 33 is reporting that they’ve tried to go up the stairs on side D and the stairs are untenable. Engine 13 is reporting high heat and zero visibility on side A, unable to find the fire and unable to locate any victims. Unable to complete the primary search because of the heat. I try to call Ladder 12 inside but get no answer. Right about that time some of the bricks on side A start falling onto the sidewalk from about thirty feet up, and I’m thinking if we’re not careful we’re going to lose firefighters here.
    Then this woman cop comes over, and she’s got three kids with her, and they turn out to be the missing kids. They’ve been outside the whole time. This takes a while to figure out, because, I mean, none of these people are speaking good English, but finally I get them to agree that everybody is out.
    At that point Engine 33 reports a loud explosion somewhere inside the building. And I’m thinking this is the Mary Pang fire all over again. So I ask Captain Ohman on Engine 13 if he doesn’t think we should declare this a defensive fire, and he radios back that they’re not doing any good inside. I ask Ladder 7 on side B how they’re doing getting to the roof and they report that they’ve had to reposition their rig because of power lines, but they’re working on it.
    God, I hate to turn anything into a defensive fire. So I walk around the building to side D, thinking I’ll take a look, maybe view the second and third side of the building, and when I get around the corner, there’s this hellacious fire burning in the stairwell. And another one inside the doorway to the first floor. And they’ve got two two-and-a-half-inch lines going, but the water’s not making a dent in the stairs. There’s a crowd of Latinos on the corner watching, so I have some firefighter ask if there’s anybody upstairs, but they say there’s nobody up there, that the wedding reception was all on the first floor.
    I call Engine 13 and Ladder 12 out of the building and declare a defensive fire. I go back to the command post, and it is about this time Engine 28 shows up. I make Captain Brown Division C. While I’m doing this, another group of civilians comes up to one of our officers and says they think there are people inside. They don’t know, but they think so. Our officer tells them that we’ve already accounted for everybody inside.
    A minute or two later, a group of African Americans comes to the command post and begins screaming that there are people inside. The police come over and there’s some scuffling. I tell them we already