Fighting the Beast

Firefighting was a real passion of mine, not so long ago. There are few things in life that are as big an adrenaline rush as fighting a building fire. In the mid 1990's, I joined a small town department and performed several functions, from entry crew member, to pump operator.
I'll never forget Christmas Eve, 1998. Just as my (now ex) wife and I were sitting down with her father for an early holiday, my pager went off. There was a house fire several miles outside of town. Living directly across from the fire department was a blessing. I rushed out the door and sprinted to the department. Having perfected the art of donning my gear in a hurry, I quickly suited up and jumped on the first truck to roll out the door.
We arrived at the scene to see a beautiful old farmhouse ablaze. Flames rolled through the downstairs windows in tiny tornadoes of heat and destruction. Smoke billowed from the roof, conceiling the stars that had blanketed the moonless sky. Even from the road, the radiant heat was suffocating.
We were too late to do much good. It had taken so long to get there, the fire had engulfed the entire house. Still, we strung the hoses, fired up the pumps and engaged the beast with everything we had available to us. Streams of water bombarded the creature, but it refused to give up its prey. We hit it from every angle, with every sword in our arsenal, but it relinquished nothing. It took very little time until our water supply was exhausted.
While the tanker returned to town to refill, I stood in the pitch black night, with the light of the fire turning me into a sillouette, watching that fire consume what was left of the house. Embers dropped around me like raindrops from hell. At the pitch of the roof, high above me on the second floor, a beautifully malicious firestorm errupted through the roof and stretched toward the sky in triumph.
It was a loss for us...but I had to tip my hat to the beast that night. It put on a display that has lived in my memory ever since.