December 31, 2020

New Year's Eve was in full swing. Many of the firefighters had congregated at the fire station for the day. While the daytime wasn't busier than usual, during the night, fires would break out across the city as hooligans torched abandoned buildings in "celebration" of New Year's, Independence Day, and Constitution Day.

At 4:30, Ren, Nora, and their daughter Leona arrived at the station. In the rec room, over 40 people had packed the room, talking, eating, and watching TV. Yang said to the new family, "Hey there, guys." She then looked at the baby and said, "Aww, hello there, Leona."

Ren said, "Where's Ruby and Blake?"

"Spending their New Year's with their boyfriends. How's the baby?"

"She's doing baby stuff," Nora replied, holding the baby in a basket/car seat. Leona then began crying. "Hmmm, I think she's hungry. When did I last breastfeed Leona?"

"In the morning."

"Okay then. Time to eat, or, well, drink." Nora then lifted the baby from the basket, exposed one of her breasts, and let the baby breastfeed. "The doctor recommended only breastfeeding for 6 to 8 months and then another 6 to 8 months of breastfeeding and soft foods. I wish it was longer."

"Is this the first time she's been at the firehouse?"

"Oh yeah," Ren replied. "This is her first time, Nora. Hopefully, she isn't scared by all the pagers going off and our siren starting up when we get a fire call."

Then, all the pagers rang for an EMS call for a highly intoxicated man. 4 people, including both of the paid guys, ran out to the ambulance. Surprisingly, Leona paid no attention to it, and even laughed a little.

"Well," Yang said. "It's official. Leona loves loud noises." The 3 of them then laughed.

Weiss was in the office, filling out paperwork to put Theresa in the BF-CFR class coming up, as well as 3 new applications that would be coming in on the 6th of January to vote upon. Her father said to her as he looked through a cabinet of folders, "So, Weiss, Theresa's all set to go down to the academy on the 2nd of January?"

"Yup, I just sent the clearance email to the training division. She'll be turning 16 on May 21, so it won't be long after she finishes that she'll be cleared to go in buildings. She'll finish the class on March 20. Denis will be turning 14 on November 18, so he'll get in the January 2022 class. In the meantime, we'll train him to do exterior ops here."

"Good job," Hermann replied.

"I also got in the clearance emails for my training in Advanced Firefighter-Paramedic and training for 17 others in the company for other things. We had a pretty good year in terms of membership rolls. We had only 4 members leave compared to 11 members joining. Let's hope next year is even better."

"We have a few new applications to go over for the weekly meeting tomorrow." Hermann then showed Weiss 3 new applications. "One guy is coming over from Protection Fire And Engine Company with 9 years as a firefighter from when he was 14, another is 15 years old, and the last one is a retired paid firefighter-medic who is 46 years old."

"It's good that we're getting 2 experienced people. As for the 15 year old, I'll put them into the June 2021 BF-CFR class if they're accepted in." Weiss then got a text message from Jaune about the mission the group was going to go on soon. After she replied to him, she got back to typing on the computer, smiling and thinking about Jaune.

Then, the pagers went off, followed by the siren tone. Hermann said, "I told you it wouldn't take long."

As the info of the call came in, it became clear that 2 different calls were being dispatched to Vigilant at the same time. The first call was for a Bravo-Response car accident with Situ Mingyu Rescue Squad, and a Box Alarm for a Structure Fire in Goodwill Engine Company's first-due with Meilyr Broderick Fire Company and Excellence Fire Company, plus the Assistant District 2 Chief.

Hermann and Weiss headed out. Hermann shouted to the firefighters, "The Truck will go to the fire, and the Rescue will go to the accident!"

Weiss and Yang both put their gear on and ran to get on the truck. Ren decided to go to the accident instead of the fire and got on the rescue. Hermann went to the fire on the truck.

Within 2 minutes, both trucks went out in opposite directions to the 2 calls.

9 minutes after the calls came in, Truck 201 arrived at the fire. By now, a Code 99 had been called, bringing in a 5th company and the District 2 Chief. Everyone got out just in time to watch 3 Goodwill firefighters bring out what appeared to be a small child from the thick smoke. A broken window on the second floor indicated that something was probably thrown in to start the fire.

Weiss and Yang looked on as 2 other Goodwill firefighters ran over with medic bags and began to do chest compressions. Weiss said, "Damn it, not kids." The 2 of them then masked up.

Hermann yelled, "We need 4 firefighters from Vigilant inside the building!"

Yang yelled back," Me and Weiss will go!" The 2 of them then walked over to the building's entrance and went inside.

As they did, 2 Goodwill firefighters passed them, carrying yet another child, and one of them said, "There's a hand line we left on the second floor at the top of the stairs. Be careful, there's a hole in the floor of the 4th apartment due to renovation." Weiss shook her head in disbelief, and she and Yang walked up the stairs.

When they got there, Yang picked up the hand line and said, "Why did it have to be fucking kids?" They both then advanced down the hallway with the hand line. After passing the 3rd apartment, they looked into the 4th apartment and saw smoke pouring out.

Weiss said, "Let's go in and knock the rest of the fire down. Be careful and watch out for the hole." The 2 of them then got down on their knees and began crawling in the thick smoke. Yang felt the floor out in front of them to make sure they didn't fall through the hole to the first floor.

As they entered the living room/kitchen area of the apartment, they began knocking down the fire. Yang said as she looked at the blackened walls of the room, "Looks like the entire apartment burned up! The walls are all charred!"

"Wouldn't be surprised," Weiss replied as she increased the water flow out of the hozzle. "It was probably a flaming bottle that was thrown in here."

After a few more moments of spraying, Weiss stopped. Yang said, "Let's check the 4th downstairs apartment for any extensions."

"Good idea," Weiss replied as the 2 began crawling back into the hallway outside the apartment. When they got out of the 4th apartment, they both stood up and began walking to the stairs with their hand line as 3 other firefighters walked past them towards the 4th apartment with hand tools.

When they got downstairs, they turned and began walking to the 4th apartment on the first floor. When they reached it, they both went down on their knees again and crawled inside.

Weiss said, "Well, looks like we got some fire here too." She then began spraying down the small hotspots in the family room/kitchen area of the apartment, covering the whole room in water.

As they did, a radio transmission said, "Incident Command to all Vigilant firefighters from Truck 201, once you are done with your current tasks, report back to your truck to respond to another call for a dumpster truck fire."

Yang said, "Oh my God, you gotta be shitting me. Another call?"

Weiss replied, "Let's get a bit more water on this apartment and get back outside. I wonder how Ren is doing at the accident."

At the car accident, the patient was a man who had complained of severe leg pain after his car had hit a parked car on the side of the road. By now, the firefighters were getting ready to place him onto a stretcher.

Ren and 5 other firefighters all said as they began lifting the backboard the victim was on, "One, two, three." They then gently placed him onto the stretcher.

A Vigilant firefighter said to Ren, "They had a pretty bad fire out in Goodwill. Now we're getting a dumpster truck fire in our area too."

Ren asked, "How bad was the fire?"

"They brought out 4 kids and 2 adults who inhaled a lot of smoke. They think a flaming bottle was thrown at an apartment under renovation of the 2nd floor. They special called 2 more companies for ambulances." He then turned to Situ Mingyu's captain and asked, "Captain, can we be dismissed to handle the dumpster truck fire?"

"I was just about to," the captain replied. He then went to his car and radioed Fire Alarm to release Rescue 201 to the scene to go to the dumpster truck fire.

Ren then walked over to the rescue and got in a seat in the back. He had ridden the rear step to the accident, and he did not want to do it again in the cold weather.

3 minutes later, the truck and the rescue pulled up on the dumpster truck fire. By now, the cab and the engine were fully involved.

Weiss and Yang got out and immediately grabbed a hand line. As they stretched it, Ren and another firefighter grabbed a hand line from the rescue as well.

Weiss and Yang approached the fire away from where the wind was blowing to make sure none of the smoke blew in their faces. Weiss turned around and said, "Charge the line!" The engineer nodded and filled their hand line with water from the truck's booster tank.

Yang then opened the nozzle up and began knocking down the fire. As the water hit the flames, smoke poured out of the cab and engine. Soon afterwards, Ren's line began spraying water as well.

After a few minutes, the fire was more or less out. As Yang shut down her line, they all heard another siren approaching.

They looked behind the dumpster truck and saw Vigilant's ambulance responding back to the structure fire with lights flashing and sirens blaring. As the ambulance passed them Weiss said, "I assume they needed more people on scene, as well as a way to pick up all our firefighters that went to the scene on their own. God, that was a bad fire."

At 5:40, all Vigilant trucks were back in the station.

Blake, having responded to the structure fire in a taxi, sat at the bar next to Yang and Weiss. She said to them, "Well that was a bad start to New Year's Eve."

"Sure was," Yang replied solemnly. "I know we're gonna get more structure fires tonight, so the only thing I can pray for is that they're in abandoned buildings."

"They usually are," Weiss added. "Flaming bottle attacks on occupied structures are rare."

Blake then drank the last of her soda and said, "Well, I'm gonna go head over back to my place to be with Sun." She crushed her can and handed it to Yang. "See you gals later."

"Bye," Yang said as she waved. She then turned to Weiss, "George was at that fire, but I didn't really see him." She then sighed and laughed. "You know, I'm starting to look to the future with George. I mean, come on, I'm 23 years old, I'll be turning 24 next year, and I'm approaching the age where most women start getting married and having kids."

Weiss replied, "Yeah, so? That doesn't mean you have to get hitched to him and have kids."

"But I'm starting to plan for the future. Look, maybe I want to marry him eventually. He's a caring young man who, A: doesn't judge me for my sexuality, B: is actually very good at mediating conflicts. C: understands life as a firefighter because we're both firefighters. D: is rather humble and understand that neither of us are perfect. And E: would never think of harming me intentionally, ever."

"You got lucky with George," Weiss replied. "As for me, it's still too early with Jaune, who, no doubt, is a great guy, to be thinking that far ahead into the future." Weiss then changed the subject. "So, anyways, mind if I tell ya a story about me that happened here when I was 15? It's pretty funny."

"Sure. I could use a good laugh to get my mind off of that fire without having to drink."

"Well, what happened was this: I was 15, my sister was 20, and there was this kid in the company named Harald who was like 13 at the time. He was showing us a toy that you stood on that had wheels on it. It was big back like 8 years ago. It was basically a hands-free two-wheeled scooter called a hoverboard."

"Oh yeah, I heard about those." Yang laughed. "There were a lot of videos of people falling on their ass off of them."

"Well this Harald kid was more or less a pro at it. He let my sister try it out. She got on it, tried moving forward, wobbled for a few seconds, and then fell right next to Rescue 201."

Yang laughed hard, almost spitting out her drink. "What? Winter did what? That's crazy."

"Our father, who was just elected captain at the time, was watching, and he jokingly said, 'As your father and your captain, I will now instruct you to never do that again.'"

Suddenly, the pagers went off and the siren turned on again. The radio squawked out a call for a structure fire in District 1 near the border of District 2. Usually, Vigilant would not have gone. However, 2 companies that were near the fire were out of service on other calls. Yang, annoyed, said, "Not this shit again."

Weiss replied, "It's New Year's Eve. Everything burns on this day. Sounds like someone called in a report of people throwing at least 4 flaming bottles at an abandoned storefront."

Ren said to Yang and Weiss, "I'm gonna sit this one out and stay here with Nora and Leona."

"See ya later then," Weiss quickly replied as she ran out to the apparatus bay to grab her gear and get on a truck. After putting her gear on, she ran and hopped aboard Truck 201, taking the 5th seat out of 8 in the back. Yang soon joined her, taking the 6th seat.

Once all the seats were filled, the truck pulled out, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Yang said as she strapped in her seat's SCBA, "2 structure fires in less than an hour and 15 minutes. I must say, I thought I'd never see that much action in a single day."