Never Underestimate Its Potential
Fire is a powerful energy. One moment you are staring at a little ball of fire and the next, an inferno is before you. My hope is that what I share with you in the following you will find analogous with spiritual, emotional, mental, and perhaps also, physical fires in your life.
I completed a work study at our city’s main fire station headquarters in college. Aside from working in close proximity and directly with the chiefs, captains and smelling all the great food aromas from the firefighters’ floor, one of my most memorable experiences in life came from that work study opportunity.
I got held up in school and almost didn’t make it. I was grateful that the Chief of Finance was kind enough to come back and get me from the headquarters. It was drill day. A house had already been prepped and was scheduled to be set on fire.
I arrived to see that the firefighters had prepared the fire truck battalions and ladders on the street with the fire hoses laid out, ready for target.
As if the entire day was not already a day to remember, I would also be able to walk through the home once it would be set on fire. Provided with fire gear, I was ready to follow cue, prepped with a demonstration as to how I would walk through the house premise under the guardianship of chiefs and fighters. This had been the plan.
Just as the home had been set ablaze, even though all of highest levels of fire experts were around, the lit fire quickly became untamed. My supervising chief reluctantly informed me that we would not be able to walk into and through the home.
As I saw the firefighters on both sides work to control the house lit on fire while they concurrently and systematically saturated the adjacent homes and trees next to it with the fire hoses, I could feel the power of the inferno taking place before me, all fighters around holding it down, maintaining their cool as they worked together to sustain any unwanted flares.
I will never forget that immense heat penetrating through my gear, feeling as if my hair would have become scorched had it not been for the helmet I was wearing as I stood in front of that home. What I’m sure has many descriptive feelings based off one’s experience, I could only explain it as if a fire pit had been put in front of me created for a giant. Intimidating while inexplicably empowering at the same time, I stood before the home in silent awe as it rapidly became engulfed to the ground. The deafening sound of the burning fire seemingly muted any contending noise. It was as if this fueled energy that had erupted before me hungered to grow, wanting to devour more than what it had been devised to burn down. It was a raging sight to just stand there and watch, as if the fire was alive, battling to survive and grow as the firefighters continued to sustain its strength and powers.
Thankfully, the firefighters were able to keep the fire under control as they continued to hose down all neighboring trees while also keeping watch of the adjacent homes.
Many years, however, I witnessed a fire too close to home. Literally. This time, it was not a drill. I recall looking outside and seeing a big, black smoke at about the same time one of the kids from our neighborhood came stumbling out of our next door neighbor’s home, exclaiming, “That’s my house on fire!”
Sure enough, just several houses down from us, a ball of fire was engulfing the rooftop of a home. The scene looked familiar to me, but this time, this was no practice. What was deemed the hottest day that summer, the fire, later reported as spontaneous combustion, was trying to swallow up a home with no sign of slowing down.
Firefighters and fire trucks immediately arrived and before you knew it, any incoming cars were blocked as those at home at the time could only watch in complete confusion and distress. Neighbors were grateful to have pulled out the grandparents and the other son, diagnosed with autism, out of the home.
Neighbors reported that when they came in to take them out, the grandparents were frantically trying to saturate down the interior of the home with buckets of water, unaware that from the outside, the rooftop looked to cave down and collapse any given minute.
I knew and understood such descriptive circumstance given I had learned of such unfortunate events years before. At the time I had completed the work study at the fire station headquarters, sadly I entered upon the very same time they had lost several fellow members to what was later discovered as intentional fire for insurance fraud.
I had just arrived at my desk, the entire floor solemn as the head chief and administrative members quietly started to fall back into their rooms and cubicles. While I was used to everyone wearing suits and business attire on this floor, this significant day, the choice of color was overwhelmingly black, adding to the heaviness of the room. No one spoke for quite some time. It was my direct captain that had broken the silence for me, reminding me where they had been that morning, quietly sharing with me that it wasn’t until the pipes began to blow where she found herself feel the deep losses. She hadn’t to remind me of their whereabouts. The Memorial Day had been broadcasted in the news and printed on newspapers for even a busy college student as myself to come across and be informed. Many men answered to my captain. For her to share a vulnerable moment with me only left me in silence, too. Firefighters, unspoken heroes, defeatedly lost to the very enemy they train regularly to fight against to save the lives of all people, this one, most hurtfully a fire that had been found as one started on purpose.
What seemed like hours, finally, to everyone’s relief, led to a successful putting out of that neighborhood house fire later deemed as the worst in our city. Before it was put out, it took one neighboring house with it and severely damaging the house on its other side. Thankfully, the fire was extinguished before it reached the green belt in the backyard, a catastrophic outcome that would have been given the trailed connection to all other homes- including ours.
Fire is created by fueled energy of heat and oxygen. It is to be understood why many could easily underestimate the risk of even a spark from a campfire in the woods or fireworks landing on a rooftop or trees. Until you see its prolific power in a manner of seconds, you would think to be the one in full control of any such situation. Personally, I have seen its ability to get out of control instantly, like an angry mother on the loose after having been confined for thousands of years underground. As it grows, it births more fire in uncontrollable directions, each determined and hungry to grow, desiring to show their mother just how fast, big, and powerful each can become, too. Infernus.
Those practice drills firefighters go through are a necessity for us all. Fires don’t happen every day. When they do, however, that mother fire is ready to devour anything standing its way. Preparing for such day can never be enough.
A small spark is innocent and innocuous by sight. Its potential when not controlled or extinguished leads to fatal outcomes, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, if not, physically.
Be careful when handling the fires in your life. Have an action and escape plan for those unwanted ones.
