The Smoke Room Read Online Free PDF

objects in the smoke, but after about a minute of crashing into furniture, I manage to trundle the heavy wheelchair and its cargo across the hose line in the hallway and outside onto the porch. His white hair is combed straight back and is neat enough for a portrait.
    Behind me in the house I hear somebody opening the bale on a nozzle, and water strikes the ceiling hard. I recognize Tronstad’s style—Tronstad, who’d been a firefighter in the Air Force before joining the Seattle department. We are taught to dispense just enough water to put the flames out, never to drown a fire, especially when working inside. A cubic foot of water turns into 1700 cubic feet of steam, and the steam smothers the fire—thus you put the fire out without causing water damage. Dry floors after a fire signal you’ve done your job correctly.
    There are more crews on the scene now, and one of the firefighters in the yard sees me and heads toward the wheelchair while I duck back through the smoke. The neighbor said there were two people inside. I have to find the other one.
    Even though the house is as dark and smoky as it was on my first traverse, I make a beeline for the bedroom where I found the man, moving with more confidence now that I’ve been through these rooms once.
    There is no one else in the bedroom.
    I get lucky and locate stairs at the back of the house. The air in the house grows hotter as I climb the carpeted steps. The smoke is denser, if that is possible. I’ve been sweating since before I left the station, but now I feel the heat radiating off my equipment as my gear begins to grow hot. Against my neck, the collar of my bunking coat feels like toast just out of the oven.
    At the top of the stairs, I swing my arms in a wide swath but find only carpet. I turn right. The first door I come to is closed. It turns out to be a closet. I find a window and break it with my portable radio. The glass panes splatter on the rooftop outside like falling crystal. I now hear Engine 29’s pump outside. I am sweating in my gear, growing weaker with each passing moment.
    I turn and begin working my way down the hallway, past the stairs. On my right I find a doorway; inside, there’s a body on the floor, a woman, tiny and dressed in nightclothes. Shaking produces no results. She is out cold. I lean over to listen for breathing but hear nothing. It is hotter up here than it was downstairs, and my helmet and gear are so hot I find myself wriggling around inside the suit to avoid skin contact with it.
    Still on my knees, I pull her outside the swing path of the door. I haul her a few feet, then, working like a grizzly dragging a fresh kill, move forward, drag her to my new position, then move forward again. Her backside is going to be raw, but I am alone and it is too hot to stand up.
    “Ted!” I yell. “I need help. Ted! I’ve got a victim.”
    Tronstad does not reply, and if there are other firefighters in the house, I cannot hear them.
    As I drag her toward the stairs, my head fills with stupid thoughts: that this is the strangest thing in the world, to be dragging a woman I’ve never seen out of a burning house. That I’ve been trained for just this event and after two years of waiting I’m now doing a genuine rescue. That she will not survive. That I should have been here five minutes sooner, and that if I had been, Tronstad and I would have saved her life.
    Striving to protect her neck and spine, I drag her down the stairs. Her body thumps on each stair. I’m not sure she is breathing, but it makes little difference to this process. Alive or dead, I will get her outside.
    Downstairs near the front door, Tronstad sees my victim, drops the nozzle, and takes the woman’s legs. I take her arms from behind, locking her wrists in front of her torso, and together we carry her into the yard as three firefighters in full bunkers and MSA bottles charge up onto the porch.
    We carry her to the center of the lawn and lay her down. Tronstad