so fun I can hardly sleep!

Holy smoke. Took a couple of days to come down off the high. Last shift was insane. We had not one but two fires. :) The first fire was a pot on the stove so one crewmate might win firefigter of the year for grabbing the pot and running outdoors with it. ;) After ventilating, and placing a smoke alarm in their home (folks..... PLEASE make sure you have working smoke alarms and CO detectors), the call was done. In the evening we had a 2 alarm fire and I felt like I was in a movie. I was driving the ladder truck and had the pedal to the floor. On the radio I could hear that there was one severely burned person at the front of the house and someone else in distress from a knife wound. Then I heard a firefighter yell 'everybody out!'. I thought maybe the floors had collapsed. Turns out it was a home invasion. Upon arrival, Command asked us to suit up and stand on deck to make entry. When I jumped out of the truck I saw the SWAT team running down the street a la Flashpoint. We were at a working crime scene and there were coppers everywhere. We were at the call for a few hours and when it was time to go we were jammed in because of all the vehicles and bystanders. It was impossible to turn a 40 foot ladder truck around so I had to back up the beast something like 5 blocks in the dark. Took forever but didn't hit anything and my Captain was all smiles. There was money on whether I could do it or not.... it was pretty tight. The toughest part was not being able to set up for the next turn because there's no rearview mirror in the truck and so I had to rely on my crewmate to be my 'eyes'. It was total teamwork and trust. The irony is that by the time we got back to the hall, it took me two tries to back the truck into the bay and I told my crew with a laugh that I had used all my magic backing up powers and there was none left. I was soaked with sweat down to my skivvies but still gave my crewmate a huge hug. I LOVE MY STINKING JOB!!! Can't remember the last time I had this much fun!

Can't wait to see what tomorrow's shift will bring!