74 Fighting a Blaze

With the advent of electricity, it was now common to see houses lit up at night in the city of Hermes. Still, a particular house was more lit up than usual because it was on fire.

A crowd had begun gathering outside as people started watching the fire spread. By now, most of the house was in flames and the fire was starting to spread to the neighboring houses. The people of the neighborhood had all been warned once the fire started and the people in the houses nearby had evacuated. Those that were not right next door took their time to remove as much as they could from their houses.

News of the fire spread quickly and the alarm was quickly raised. There were multiple booths scattered throughout the city with a button to alert the fire department in case of a fire. The fire booths were connected by wires to the fire station and when the button was pressed a bulb would light up to indicate which region the fire was in.

Once the button was pressed, the person who pressed the button was supposed to wait there as the firefighters came. Once the response team arrived, the person would then tell them where the fire was precisely. Although the system wasn't perfect, it was the best solution using currently available technology since the system had to be simple enough for the common person to operate.

On this night, like many other nights, the firefighters were on duty at the station as they waiting for any alarms to come in. Most of their shift involved lots of waiting so they usually played cards to pass the time. At the moment, Jerry was in the lead and he was looking forward to winning the game. Suddenly, the alarm sounded.

The firefighters immediately dropped the cards and went to check the response system. They saw the light and they now knew where they had to go. Everyone quickly ran over to the fire pole and slid down.

The fire pole had seemed like a rather odd thing initially, but the firefighters soon realized the advantages over a spiral staircase. Sliding down the fire pole was much faster than running down a staircase. So, this rather odd fixture soon became quite ordinary to the firefighters.

None of the fire departments in the past had fire poles, mostly because there weren't fire departments in the past. Mostly, what would happen was that the common people would form a bucket chain to deliver water. The main problem with this is that it was often quite disorganized and the chaos involved would often hinder the fire fighting efforts. The introduction of a centralized fire fighting department helped to alleviate these issues.

After the firefighters slid down the pole, they quickly ran toward what was now the most important part of the fire fighting system. It was a new invention and had been introduced to help fire fighting efforts. Using buckets to transport water was far too slow and thus there needed to be a better way.

What resulted from this need was the fire truck. It was a massive vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine. It would have the capability to carry a group of firefighters and bring them to the location of the fire quickly. It carried a large water tank as well as a pump which could shoot out water through the hose.

This was still an early design and thus there were still many problems due to the technological inadequacy. First of all, the need for an affordable engine meant that the engine had only a moderate amount of power. Since the fire truck needed to move quickly, it could not carry too much weight. Since traveling with a full tank of water would slow it down too much, it didn't carry any water.

The only reason why the fire truck could get away with not carrying water was that there was a public water system that supplied the city. Fire hydrants were built so that the fire trucks could be supplied with water after they arrived. With the ability to get water anywhere, it was no longer necessary to carry around water.

Still, there could be times when a hydrant was broken. That would be a very bad scenario. In this case, there was no choice but to go to a farther one and load up the tank with water and bring it back. Once loaded, the fire truck traveled rather slowly. Fortunately, most of the firefighters would have gotten off the truck when it went to get water so some weight would be reduced.

Once the fire truck arrived, it would park and then hook up to a fire hydrant. Then the engine power would be redirected to the pump which would then start operating. Since there usually wouldn't be a need for a fire truck to spray water while moving, this was an acceptable way to cut corners.

Today, the fire truck rumbled through the streets as it arrived at its destination. One of the houses was enveloped in flames and the fire was already on the sides of the neighboring houses. Jerry and his fellow fellow firefighters quickly hopped out and got everything set up. The hose was linked up to the hydrant and water started to come out.

The hose took several men to hold in place as they began spraying water toward the houses. They started from the left and put out the fire that was working its way through the house. Faced with a torrential stream of water, the fire was soon put out on that side.

The firefighters slowly worked their way through from the left to the right and eventually the fire was put out. As the crowd began to disperse, the firefighters began interviewing the remaining people to find out how the fire started.

There was a man standing outside without a shirt. Since this seemed rather odd, the firefighters decided to talk to him first. The cause of the fire was soon revealed. Apparently, the man had been cooking when he leaned in too close and the bottom of his shirt caught fire. He then responded by panicking and he quickly pulled the shirt off and threw it to the side. This caused the curtains to light on fire and soon the fire started spreading everywhere.

With the cause of the fire discovered, the firefighters returned and began working on their report. They recommended that fire safety be taught to the population. Stop, Drop, and Roll. Don't throw the flaming shirt into other flammable materials.