-By Bob Wade, DAT Night Team Leader/Supervisor–ARC of SE Wisconsin–Milwaukee, WI.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

After only responding to a house flood on Thursday night and nothing on Friday night, tonight I was called out to a BIG fire in the 3800 block of N. Port Washington Rd.

The battalion commander at the scene quickly upgraded the fire to a 2nd alarm and then called in for even more assistance with a “1-and-1″call–an additional ladder and another engine.

At the scene there were 7 engines, 6 ladder trucks, 1 COMM truck for communications, 1 compressed air unit (CAIR), 1 deputy chief, 2 battalion commanders, 1 safety officer, a small army of police officers, and at least 2 medical units.

It was an 8-unit, two-story, multi-family brick apartment building.

The firefighters quickly threw a ladder up against the side of the building and pulled a man out of a 2nd story window.  He said he never heard the fire alarm going off and slept right through it.  The paramedics checked him over and he was OK.

I arrived on scene fairly quickly because I heard the initial call come across my police scanner and was waiting in the van at the end of my driveway, with the engine running, waiting for the call to come in.

I called Steve Stein, the Supervisor and DAT Program Coordinator, on my way there, to alert him to the 2nd alarm and he asked me if I thought I would need his help there. I told him that I had 3 people responding as well and I thought we could handle it, but would call him once I got there and assessed the situation.

When I was able to confirm that it was an 8-unit apartment complex, I called Steve back and he said he was alerting “Mass Care” and that we would be opening up the Chapter for them.

We scoured the perimeter of the fire scene and did all of the interviews. All 8 units were occupied.

We started out with only a couple of the occupants needing a place to stay, then as the occupants began to think they were getting a free hotel room, that number went up.

Steve called me back and said he was about 10 minutes away from the Red Cross Chapter on 26th & Wisconsin Avenue and to send everyone who needed shelter down there.

“This man is Superman!” I thought to myself. He lives up in Cedarburg. How does he know when a fire of this magnitude is occurring and still be able to get to the Chapter so quickly?”

The plan was to send the clients to a hotel room from the Chapter, so only those truly without an alternate place to stay would obviously be the ones going there.

After making that (the shelter) announcement to the occupants from the aptartment building, the number needing shelter from us slowly dwindled down to zero.

Everyone was very concerned about getting back into their apartments to at least retrieve their medications, so when speaking to them about the shelter, I told them that the best medicine was for them to stay with family or friends.

The mosquitoes were eating everyone alive so I ran back to the van and got the two pump spray bottles of ‘Off,’ which I bought the other day, and everyone put some on.

The four of us jumped back into the van and started writing up client assistance card forms for emergency spending money for everyone.

I called them in to the duty worker for authorization and we issued those on the spot, along with blankets, clothing, and comfort kits.

One of the battalion commanders told me that it was now a crime scene, must’ve been arson, and that no one would be allowed back into the building tonight.

I asked one of the police officers about retrieving medications for everyone and a few minutes later, three of them started asking the occupants where they kept them and then went back in to the building and brought them out.

After calling for two taxis, our work was done there.

****

4am: There’s a working structure fire call coming in across the police scanner as I’m writing this!  

Gotta Go!! 

****

Just returned from that 2nd fire of the night.I was still awake, but was just about to call it a night when the call came across my police scanner.  Instead of heading to my bed, I headed to my bedroom to put my gear back on. I knew my phone was about to ring based upon what I was hearing on the scanner.

I made it all of the way down my back stairs and was just opening up the door, with a cooler full of fresh bottled water when the duty worker called.  “I heard it, and I’m responding as we speak” I said to her on my cell phone.

I arrived at the scene about 15 minutes later. I heard a call out for a “1-and-1″ as I drove up I-43 on my way to the Locust Street exit…even passed an MFD fire house two blocks away from this fire.  “They must’ve gotten here in seconds!” I thought to myself.

Before me sat a very large 2 1/2-story multi-family dwelling, fully ablaze, with a multitude of fire fighters in full attack mode.  Even the exterior of this house was on fire.  The vinyl siding was burning.

The skies were clear, the temp was a chilly 50-something degree’s outside, and there was a light breeze blowing out of the NW.  The smoke from the fire was thick and drifting low throughout the neighborhood to the SE of the house, choking those in their beds, in its path, I imagined.

“5420 is on scene!!” I radio in to my three other responding teammates. “Come in from the West on Locust Street if you can. The way in from the East is blocked!  There’s no way in from the East!”

I got out of the van, located a police officer, and he directed me to the families who lived in the still burning home.

“We have 11 family members from both units over on the corner, across the street from the house” he tells me.

I thanked him and focused my attention upon my mission.

The news stories that came out of this fire said that all 11 were rescued from the house. My first glance at them told me that they had gotten out in a hurry.  No shoes or socks, pajamas only.

Eleven people, mostly children, and one big dog (a rotweiler), were standing out on the corner at 32^nd and Locust St.

The dog was looking up at the house with such a look on his face, as if he was thinking, “What have you done to my house?”

I introduced myself and told everyone that I had blankets, clothing, shoes, and socks in my van and asked if anyone would like anything?  They all said, “Yes…Please!” as they stood there underneath the light of a shivering crescent moon.

I ran back to the van and started gathering supplies. The van was on the west side of the fire scene and the families were on the east side. It was a long run, back and forth but it was the best I could do at that very moment.

I got back to where the clients were standing and started to interview the head-of-household, a very friendly older woman, “Bobbie,” who kept holding her hand up to her mouth as she spoke to me. I think she didn’t have her teeth in because I barely understood what she was saying.

I learned that it was an upper/lower duplex and that they were all related. I asked if they had any family members or friends in the area where they might be able to stay for the rest of the weekend.  Bobbie said, “No, I don’t think they have enough room for us all.”

“No problem,” I tell her, “We can get everyone into a hotel, free of charge, of course.”

As my teammates started to show up, I assigned them individual tasks. I put Pauli, our newest DAT member and observer, to work once again.  She’s no ‘Observer,’ she was born to do this! She already proved that to everyone at her very first call on Thursday night at the flood.

Kayti called MADACC (Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission) to come and get the dog. The Red Cross rule is to not allow pets into the hotel rooms we give to our clients.

Fifteen minutes went by and the dog was gone.  MADACC showed up that fast. I was impressed.  We don’t even have to fill out paper work for pets. They just come and get them when we call, no questions asked.  MADACC is awesome!!

The battalion commander from the Milwaukee Fire Department came over to me. It was “The Joker” (as I have quietly nicknamed him from previous fires) and he said, “Hello. Thanks for coming out. Look over there (as he pointed to a vacant lot next to the still burning house) “That’s one of our saves!” and then he pointed to another vacant lot…”And there’s yet another one of our saves!”

I’ve heard these same jokes from him before, but they are still nice to hear at this point.

I laughed, but Pauli, who was new and trying to make a good impression, looked at the battalion commander and said, “Really? Wow!” with all seriousness about her. I had to tell her later that this battalion commander always has a sense of humor and knows how to lighten the load by making innocent jokes at fire scenes and that he was just joking. ”Get it? Vacant lot. Saves??”

Pauli finally got it and thought that was weird.

After responding to over 100 fire calls, you realize that you don’t always have to be serious all of the time.  When we’re with clients, we’re professional at all times and we’re always watching over them, looking for those who are sad and about to cry, watching for those who may start to show symptoms of emotional aftershocks of what just happened. A touch to the hand, arm, and/or shoulder, along with some caring words and a hug does wonders in situations like these.

When one’s house catches on fire, all one can really do at that moment is stand across the street from it and watch it burn.

We’re there to make sure people know that it’s going to be OK and that there is hope and better days ahead.

It’s not an end to end-all unless there’s a fatality, the worst-case scenario call of all.

Thankfully, this isn’t a story I have to tell here…this time.

After gathering up all of our needed information on the families, the four of us headed back to the van and systematically put together an assistance package. It was turning into a full-service call at this one…3 hotel rooms, 2 taxis, 2 Client Assistance Cards, 11 comfort kits, and a boat load of clothing.

Kayti and Pauli loaded up bags full of the material assistance items, and loaded their helmets up with bottled water to take back to the two families.

Teresa and I called the hotel, called the duty worker to authorize the CACs and made sure that our paper work was all properly filled out.

Pauli came back after that trip over to the clients and came up to the window of the van where I was sitting and asked, “Can I get one more bottle of water?  There’s a firefighter over there vomiting all over the place.”

Pauli came back 2 minutes later, same bottle of water in hand, and said, “He didn’t need the water…the fire fighters around him said that he’s OK. He throws up at every fire.”

About two hours had gone by at this point.  I looked up at the house and noticed that the fire was starting up again on the roof, on the back of the house. I told Teresa to take a look up.  “Wow…I can’t believe that this house is still burning!”

A good 90% of this entire house burned, inside and out. The back half of the entire roof on one side of the house was completely gone…absolutely nothing left!  The worst fire damage I’ve ever seen.

Earlier, while we were standing in front of this house, we watched as the fire fighters inside were attacking the fire on the upper floors. They had one of the fire hoses opened wide-up, near the front 2nd floor window, blasting the walls and ceiling with it. That part of the interior of the house was literally disintegrating as they hit it with the water. All everyone could do on our side of the street was open up our mouths and say, “Wow!!”

Out of the blue, a woman from across the street showed up, and introduced herself to me.  She said she was a family friend and was going to take the children over to her house to give them some clothing, stuffed animals and let them to go to the bathroom. Ten minutes earlier I had given a few of the children permission to go behind a house so they could relieve themselves…the cops saw me directing them back there, so I told them, “They have no place to go to the bathroom.”  They just looked the other way.  Whew!

When this woman left with the children, Bobbie told me that this other woman’s son had recently murdered her grandson. “Shot him dead, right in my back yard, but the two of us are good friends now. The trial is on Monday.”

Other relatives showed up later and started suggesting this fire might be a warning against the upcoming scheduled testimony in court.

The woman came back with the children about 15 minutes later and handed me a stuffed animal as she said, “You look like you could use one too!”

Awesome!!

I laughed and gently handed it back to her. “Thank you so much, but my van is full of stuffed animals. We can save this one for the children.”

The sun was starting to come up and even though our work was completed there, we stayed.

We were all getting along so well with this family; we just stayed there and kept talking, getting to know them better. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of this job.

At that moment, we DAT member’s were one with those families.

I noticed that one young man, Trevor, didn’t have any warm clothing on so we got him something to wear.  He told me how he smelled the smoke and woke up and all about how he got out of the house with his family. At one point, he stopped in mid-sentence, looked up at me and said, “Thank You!” with tears running out of the corners of his eyes.

Bobbie said to me, “Can we get out of here now?  We don’t need to be standing here looking at this depressing house anymore. We should head to the hotel now.”

I told her that I would check with the police officers and arson investigators.

Kayti asked if she could head on home. I asked her where her car was and she pointed to the south on 28th St.  “I think I parked down there.”  I told her that I would walk her back to her car.  She walked on ahead of me, past the arson investigators. I stopped and asked them if it was okay for the families to leave. They told me that they had a couple more questions to ask them.

Kayti came back to me and stated that her car wasn’t down there. I told her that I just might have to give her the “1st person to lose their car at a fire call award for the week.”  We both laughed.  I’ve done the same thing myself, before becoming the team leader, when I used to drive my own car to fires. “Where is my car?”  With the adrenalin rush going on inside of you, it’s very easy to forget where you parked your car after everything is all said and done.

I think for a second then remember what Kayti said to me on the radio once she had arrived.  She said she was walking in from the north, when she had first arrived on scene. We walked to the north of Locust St., and sure enough, there was Kayti’s car!

I followed Teresa out from the fire scene; me in the van, she in her car.  We hit a red light on N Sherman Blvd–side-by-side, our windows rolled down, and she started to say, “I hope we don’t get another one. Wait! Our shift is over!!”   It was well after 6am.

I jokingly yelled over to her, out of the van’s window, ”It’s Miller Time!!”

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