Dead Watch: a fast-paced thriller you don't want to miss

by Steve Liszka

  As Lenny turned the key and waited for the roller shutter doors to rise, the main-scheme radio on the appliance fired up,

  ‘Multiple calls to this incident, smoke issuing. Still believed to be Persons Reported.’

  Wesley turned and looked to his BA crew. ‘You got that right, guys? I want you under air before we get there.’

  The image that television and the movies portrayed of internal firefighting was about as far from the truth as possible, and with good reason, too, because if you wanted to make an exciting film about brave firefighters tackling an inferno, you definitely wouldn’t want to base it on fact. In the movies, some brave young fireman would usually tell his boss he didn’t care about rules, there was a life to save, goddamn it. Then, he would take a deep breath, kick the front door in and charge headfirst into the building armed only with an axe or crowbar. Once inside, he would look around and take stock of the situation; everything in the room would be on fire, and visibility would be excellent. He would grit his teeth and run up the burning staircase, fight his way into the bedroom, throw the pretty casualty over his shoulder in the good old fireman’s lift, then bring her out to high fives from his concerned colleagues.

  That’s how it usually goes down in the films, right? This, however, is what really happens:

  If the OIC decides to tackle the fire offensively, they will send in a BA crew or crews, which 99% of the time will consist of two firefighters. No one ever goes into a fire on their own. Before committing to the incident, the pair will first report to the Entry Control Officer (ECO) who will take their tally (a little piece of plastic with their name and cylinder pressure on it) and place it into the BA board. They will then do a little calculation on the board based on their cylinder pressure and estimate how long they have until their air runs out. This isn’t always an exact figure; if a crew is busting their asses dragging charged lengths of hose in the building, they will fly through their air; if they’re standing around dampening down at an incident, it might last twice as long as predicted.

  The crews will then do a buddy check to make sure no bare skin is showing around their flash-hoods or gloves. Unlike in the old days, they had to be protected from the extreme heat they were about to face. It wasn’t unheard of to encounter temperatures of over a thousand degrees, and so the modern kit they wore had to reflect that.

  When the ECO had checked them over again, he would brief the crews on what was expected of them, then make them repeat the brief back to him before allowing them into the building. A BA crew always took some form of firefighting medium into the building with them. If it was a small electrical or oil fire, that may be an extinguisher or fire blanket, but in most cases, they relied on the high-pressure hose reel on the appliance, or if they needed greater volumes of water, then the larger, lay-flat hose would be used. Contrary to movie folklore, axes had proved to be rather ineffective at putting fires out. While this was going on, one of the crew members (usually the driver) would be trying to locate a hydrant to provide them with a sufficient water source. The two thousand litres of water the fire engine contained would be gone in no time at a serious incident.

  Before entering the building, the BA team would test their hose by opening it up to make sure they had sufficient pressure from the pump operator, then, when they were finally ready, they would carry out their door procedures. Kicking in a front door looked awesome in the movies, but it was a moronic and potentially lethal thing for a firefighter to do. They could be walking into a room where an oxygen-starved fire was smouldering away, waiting for a sudden influx of air that would create the perfect explosive mixture for the flammable gases that filled the room, creating a backdraft. If you’ve seen the film, (even though it’s exaggerated Hollywood bullshit), you’ll know that’s something you don’t want to happen.

  If it is hot in the room, then those gases need to be cooled down to take them out of their explosive limits. This is where a firefighter really earns their dough, because if they get their gas cooling techniques wrong, they could be in big trouble. Despite what people think, if they use it incorrectly, the water the crews are taking in with them can be deadly. The stuff expands thousands of times when it turns into steam, and if a crew uses too much, they can end up boiling themselves alive. A good BA team will use only the necessary water on an internal, unventilated fire, delivering short, controlled bursts with their branch, making the conditions in the room as beneficial to themselves as possible.

  When they’ve done their door procedures and pushed into the room, the crew then need to start searching, whether that be to find casualties or the source of the fire itself. Unlike in the films, visibility in these situations is usually zero, or pretty close to it anyway. We’re talking “can’t see your hand in front of your face” shit, here. If you ask any firefighter, they’ll tell you it’s the smoke that’s the real bastard at most incidents, not the fire itself. Not only is it fucking hot, but it makes their eyes virtually useless. That’s why when the crews enter a building, they are meant to keep in constant physical contact with each other.

  Crews then have to carry out a systemic search of each and every room in the building while not being able to see a thing and dealing with the furniture and general clutter that fills people’s houses and gets in their way at every turn. The system most usually employed is a left or right-hand search, room-by-room, floor-by-floor. For this to work, the team leader, the number one, makes contact with a wall, their point of reference, and follows that wall as their partner moves parallel with them, within an arm’s reach. They turn when they get to each corner of the room until they finally get back to the door they first entered, checking on and under beds, in cupboards and anywhere a casualty could possibly be located as they go.

  As the team push forward, they sweep the floor with one foot, feeling for holes or what could be a casualty and not just a cushion or cuddly toy. At the same time, they wave one of their arms up and down in front of them in order to identify any objects they could bump into or get snagged in. Getting caught up in low hanging cables that have fallen from melted trunking is every firefighter’s nightmare, and something that has been responsible for more than one fatality. This search method is called the BA shuffle, and although it looks ridiculous to anyone who may be watching with a thermal imaging camera, this tried and tested method provides a vital means of moving around in the dark.

  If they do find a casualty, the fireman’s lift is a no-no. It looks great on TV, but all the heat and smoke is located at the top of the room, and that is not the place you want your casualty’s head to be located. The way to bring them out is for one of the team, usually the one with most air left, to grab the casualty under the armpits and drag them out backwards as their partner guides them out.

  The crew’s lives are made even more difficult by the impairment of their other senses. Wearing a flash-hood, helmet and BA mask, it is extremely difficult for them to hear each other, and they often have to shout to make themselves understood. The gloves they wear do an excellent job of preventing their hands from being burned, but it also means that jobs that require a level of dexterity are extremely difficult. Sometimes, it feels like wearing boxing gloves when they are trying to open a door or pick something up off the floor.

  So, that’s what a real fire looks like; two firefighters stumbling around in the dark, bumping into each other and doing their best not to get disorientated and lost. And, just for the record, the only time everything in a room is on fire is usually just before it flashes over, and if that happens, then the crews are really fucked, but we’ll come back to that later. So, all-in-all, you couldn’t really blame the films for their portrayal of firefighting in action. It was a hell of a lot more exciting than the real thing.

  When they arrived at the incident, they could see that mobilising were correct. Thick black smoke was issuing from the second floor of the three-storey, purpose-built block of flats that had long seen better days and was known for housing some pretty unsavoury chara
cters. Many of them were now standing outside, watching the drama unfold. Its name, Seaview Court, was slightly misleading, as only the flats on the top floor had a clear view of the ocean, and that was only because Whitehawk was nestled on one of the highest points in the city, and was a good mile from the beach.

  After Harrison checked them over, tucking Dylan’s flash-hood under his mask to hide his exposed skin, he checked their gauges for their pressure readings, then passed the hose reel to Jo. She opened it up and turned the ring on the front of the branch, adjusting the cone of water until she was happy with it. They did their final gauge check and were about to enter the building when Wesley grabbed Jo’s arm.

  ‘One of the neighbours has just told me on the quiet that the guy who lives there is a drug dealer. Be careful the place hasn’t been booby trapped. If in doubt, get out, quick sharp. I don’t want you doing anything silly.’

  ‘No problems,’ she said, then looked to Dylan. ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we?’

  It was a statement not a question.

  Wesley was right to be concerned. In recent years, there had been a spate of fires at drug production labs. It sounded high-tech, but these were normally scrubby little meth labs running out of houses or flats like the one they were about to enter. The guys who ran these places made sure they were safe from any rivals who fancied getting hold of their products, and often rigged the places up to be death traps. Bars were put across the windows and then wired up to a live electrical feed so that anyone touching them would be instantly vaporised. Inside, they often removed floorboards and placed a bed of six-inch nails in the gap, then covered it over with a rug. Or sometimes, a door would be rigged, so if it was opened, some horrible spiky thing would swing into the poor person, just like that scene in First Blood. Basically, they were not the type of places you wanted to be fumbling around in the dark. Luckily, they hadn’t encountered any in Brighton yet. It was hydroponic dope in people’s lofts they normally dealt with, but there was always a first time.

  When they got to the second floor, Dylan was already breathing hard due to him dragging the hose reel up the stairs. It was the number two’s job to do the donkey-work, while number one led the way and acted as path-finder. There were three doorways on the floor, and it was clear from the smoke-blackened edges the fire was located in the west-facing one. When they got to the door, Dylan took hold of the handle and dropped to his knees. Jo did the same as she positioned the branch in front of her like she was about to fire a rifle; they were ready to carry out their door procedures.

  ‘Crack!’ Jo shouted, and a second later, Dylan opened the door six inches, keeping a tight hold of the handle. If there was potential for a backdraft, it could be ripped right out of his hand as the rush of air into the building sucked the door inwards. Jo opened and closed the branch quickly as the black smoke poured out of the flat and consumed them. She waited a few seconds to see how it reacted then put another couple of pulses of water up into the smoke.

  ‘And open.’

  As Dylan pulled the door, Jo went in low, staying on her knees with him following behind. The neutral plain – the dividing line between the smoke layer and the clean air – was about a foot off the ground. After checking behind the door for casualties, Jo got down on her belly, as this was the only place there was any visibility, and had a good look around. Satisfied, she got back to her knees (it was too hot to stand) and placed her hand on the wall to her right, then with Dylan on her outside, they pushed forward no more than six feet until they came to an open doorway. Peering inside, Jo’s sight partially returned as the fire illuminated the room.

  Through the black smoke, on the other side of the room, she could see a sofa that was engulfed in flames. The fire plume that rose up from it had already reached the ceiling, and the flames were now rolling towards them as the superheated gases at the top of the room caught alight. If it wasn’t dealt with quickly, the situation would become extremely dangerous.

  A number of things were happening here. Everything in the room was fuel for the fire, and the heat radiating from the plume was causing objects nearby to give off hot, flammable gases in a process known as pyrolysis. Those gases would rise to the top of the room and grow in depth, giving off tremendous amounts of heat themselves, and along with the fire plume, warm its contents up even further, as well as the walls, floor and ceiling. The heat they radiate helps create even more gases, and the vicious circle goes on. This thermal radiation was the real concern because if not cooled down, those gases, along with everything else in the room, would suddenly ignite, resulting in a fully developed fire. It would be like the inside of an incinerator with temperatures reaching well over a thousand degrees. Not surprisingly, anyone or thing in the room would be toast. That was what was known in the trade as a flashover.

  Luckily, Jo was trained in how to deal with such situations and so without any panic or fuss, she shot a couple of pulses of water into the gases. She watched how they reacted before applying more; she didn’t want to create too much steam and make her life more difficult.

  After a few seconds, she repeated the action, then did the same again soon after. The effects of her actions were immediate; the water had soaked up massive amounts of energy not just from the fire, but the walls and ceiling, too, and with just a few simple actions, cooled it down by a couple of hundred degrees.

  As she was getting the better of the fire, she crept forward, still on her knees, with Dylan following behind, helpfully pointing out the areas where the flames were still licking at her. When she had successfully subdued them, plunging the room into darkness, Jo concentrated on the sofa itself. The next time she opened the branch up, it was only cracked slightly, reducing the volume and pressure of the water. She trickled it onto the fire; too much would steam the room up, and she didn’t want that at this stage of the game. It looked kind of like a large man pissing on the offending item and was known as painting the fire. As she continued to apply water to the sofa, she turned to Dylan.

  ‘Get the windows open and search the room.’

  Technically what she was asking of him was wrong, as it involved the crew not being within an arm’s reach of one another, but as the fire was pretty much out, and the room desperately needed ventilating, Jo was happy with her decision.

  Dylan quickly did as instructed, and as soon as the smoke was allowed to escape, the conditions in the room improved. Within seconds, they could make out that they were in the living room, and things like the TV and coffee table became visible. As she continued to damp down the sofa, Dylan edged his way around the room, using his leg to feel at the objects on the floor. Now that the fire was out, and there was suitable ventilation, he was able to stand up comfortably without the heat getting the better of him.

  Just as she closed off the branch, Dylan called out to her. ‘You better get over here. We’ve got a body.’

  Jo’s head turned to face her partner, ‘Then grab hold of them, for fuck’s sake. Let’s get them out of here!’

  Dylan’s answer was slow in coming. ‘There’s no point; they’re already dead.’

  ‘That’s not for you to say. Now, grab hold of the bastard.’

  ‘That’s the thing!’ he shouted back at her. ‘I’ve got a body, but there’s no head attached to it.’

  Tears Before Bedtime

  They didn’t get away from the job for hours. Within no time, every man and his dog were at the incident. There were police, forensic units and paramedics everywhere, even though it would take a miracle to get this one walking again. A host of officers in their white helmets huddled together in a tight knit group and were deep in conversation. They had instructed Jo and Dylan to find a quiet corner and make notes of the exact sequence of events they had gone through. The police wouldn’t take their official statements until the next morning, but Phil Collins, who had taken charge of the incident on his arrival, had encouraged them to get the events down on paper while it was still fresh in their minds. It was probably the most sens
ible thing the asshole had said in a long time.

  There was little for the others to do. As soon as the body was discovered, the incident was taken over by the police, and their priority was the preservation of the scene until SOCO arrived. It was just a case of standing around and drinking tea, for the firefighters. It was meant to be confidential, but one of the coppers had told Wesley the headless guy was an Albanian who lived there with two of his countrymen. They’d found a stash of pills and dope in one of the bedrooms but as yet, no head.

  ‘The Daily Hate Mail will love this one,’ Dylan said when Wesley passed the information onto the rest of the crew. ‘I can see the headline now. Immigrant Drug Scum Beheaded. They’ll probably give out a reward to the guy who did it.’

  Wesley inspected his crew member as the young man spoke. It was the worst incident Dylan had been to in his short time in the job. ‘How are you feeling? That wasn’t a very nice thing to see.’

  Dylan lifted his palms to sky. ‘I’m alright, I guess.’

  ‘You do realise,’ Lenny said, ‘they’ll be calling us Dead Watch for the next twenty years after that.’

  There was no real need for them to stay as the fire was long since out, but Phil wanted to keep some presence there until the fire investigation team arrived. Wesley had argued he wanted to take his crew back to the station, considering what his BA team had had to witness, but the two of them insisted they were fine. If they had seen such a spectacle in their day-to-day life, it probably would have traumatised them, but one of the effects of wearing a uniform was it acted like a kind of filter that allowed the wearer to look at things from a far more objective viewpoint.

  Some of the gorier things that firefighters encountered, and this definitely counted as one of them, often took on a slightly surreal view. It was like watching a cheap sci-fi or horror film where the blood and guts they encountered didn’t actually seem real. It was only when they got home later and had a chance to reflect on what they had seen that it normally hit them. That was why, after such events, the crews would have to take part in a critical incident debrief and talk or even just listen to the rest of the crew about what they had seen and done. It had been proven to be the best way of dealing with traumatic incidents, and although a relatively new idea, it was something fire crews had been doing for years. That was where the infamous black humour came from. It wasn’t to make fun of the dead but to help the crews find a way of dealing with it.