At 6:15 yesterday morning (Tuesday), I took a peak at the clock and hoped I could fall asleep for just a few minutes before the alarm clock went off. No such luck! Within what seemed like seconds Rich's fire pager went off and I knew more sleep wasn't happening. The kids had already been stirring and the pager was like their signal that it was okay to get up.
I went about the rest of the morning like usual, not thinking too much of the call Rich went on. I did think to check the local newspaper's website after a while to see if the fire call happened to be some sort of 'breaking news', but nothing. It was odd for our town's ladder truck to be requested in my hometown, 20 miles away, and it not to be a good size fire, but I let it be for the time.
It wasn't until about 9:30 am that I started to think Rich had been gone a while. I hoped he had managed to call work to tell them where he was and found out that he had. I then checked the local newspaper's website again to see if they had anything on the fire yet and this time they did. It turned out that a shop in downtown had caught fire...and in a small town that is BIG news...so I checked facebook too! ;-)
There was post after post about the fire sending thoughts and prayers as well as links to the local news and to Detroit News stations. After being totally consumed by the news, and sorting through pictures, videos and even turning the TV on and seeing an 11 am news report, I found out the basics. The roof collapsed, no injuries, it was a 14 alarm fire (14 fire departments responded!), the town's water supply ran extremely low and, something really neat, the community came together bringing food and drinks for all the firefighters. They were able to take breaks, fill their tummies and get checked by EMS when needed at the funeral home across the street. :-)
All the while, through the facebook posts and all the news, I was wondering about Rich....trying to pick him out in pictures...knowing he was fine, because he always reassures me that he is super safe when he's at fires. He made it home around 2:00 PM and tells me this is where he was during that time fighting the fire...
...and that any picture or video I see of a firefighter at the top of the ladder, it's him up there. (The picture above is taken from The Times Herald.)
So that guy at the tippy-top of that ladder, 60 or more feet in the air, is Rich.
(Photo credit: Sandra K.)
Those are Rich's boots at the top of this picture...going up the ladder....
(Photo credit: Sandra K.)
Rich, yet again, surrounded by smoke...
(Photo credit: Sandra K.)
Oh! Here! He's close to the ground and out of the smoke...SAFE....as he always reassures me he is. ;-)
(All the above AMAZING photos were taken by a photographer who posted them to facebook, Sandra K.)
I realized, through all of this, how accustomed I'd become, as a fire fighter's wife, to the fire calls. I remember when we were first married, I'd worry the whole time he was gone. But, in the past few years, I don't think much of it anymore...Rich is just putting out a fire and the dangers of it all rarely cross my mind. Honestly, I wasn't too worried about Rich yesterday, even though I joked about it through the picture captions. Being consumed with the happenings, I was trying to get glimpses of my husband doing something that he loves to do...
...then he tells me that firefighters don't tell their wives everything...hmmm...I am perfectly fine with that! :-)
Here is a news clip, that if you watch, you'll see a close-up of Rich:
Fox 2 News Headlines
