Chapter Text
Chapter 1.
Sam Lanier sat behind his modern dispatch console, waiting for the next call. It wouldn’t be long, he guessed. It had been that kind of day—call after call after call.
He’d noticed over the past few months that while the overall number of fire calls seemed to be holding steady, there were more and more rescue calls. Now that people were getting used to the idea that the fire department had paramedics who really could save your life before you got anywhere near a hospital, calls that people used to place directly to the ambulance companies were going to County Dispatch instead.
As part of the training for dispatchers when the paramedic program was being rolled out, Sam had done some ride-alongs with one of the rescue units. He was certainly impressed, and he’d also had the sense, right away, that he was losing touch with the fire service. The injury that had permanently taken him off active duty as a fireman had, in a sense, left him stranded in 1970, in terms of his knowledge of what actually happened in the field.
He’d learned, as was essential for the job, to ask the right questions of people calling for medical help. But he was always more comfortable talking to the callers who were reporting a good, old-fashioned fire. That, he could understand, inside and out. He could form a picture in his head of what was going on at the scene, and dispatch the right combination of resources, every time.
Well, almost every time.
~!~!~!~
BWAAM, BWOOM BWEEEP!
“Station 51, Engine 110, Truck 8; report of a structure fire, 2214 Fargo Lane, cross street Melody. 2-2-1-4 Fargo Lane, cross street Melody Avenue. Time out: 1828.”
Silverware clattered into dishes and onto the table at Station 51. Six pairs of feet moved their owners quickly to their respective vehicles. Captain Hank Stanley watched his crew with pride, as he acknowledged the call on the radio at the call station. Less than a minute after the tones dropped, the two vehicles were out of the apparatus bay and on the way to their destination.
Once they were underway, Cap picked up the handset of the mobile radio.
“L.A., Engine 51. Do you have any further information?”
There was a short pause on the other end.
“51, a neighbor reported thick smoke coming out from under the eaves. No flames showing.”
“Copy that,” Cap replied.
Three minutes after the vehicles cleared the apparatus bay, the engine pulled up in front of their destination. Even before they stopped moving, Captain Stanley was in investigative mode, eyeing the scene from the windshield. Droplets of water from the intermittent drizzle obscured his vision slightly, until Stoker hit the windshield-wiper control again.
There were two cars in the driveway, and the front yard was littered with children’s toys. A family lived there, and they were likely home.
Smoke billowed from under the eaves in the back of the house—puffs of dark gray, mixed with the occasional burst of sooty black.
Cap took this all in within an eye-blink.
“Chet, Marco—front door. Gage, DeSoto—gimme a three-sixty walk-around.”
Cap already had his suspicions of what they’d find—he’d already had three large hints that pointed to a likely explanation, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
“L.A., from Engine 51. We are on scene and investigating. Smoke visible from the rear of a one-story residential structure. Continue other units.”
“10-4, 51,” squawked the radio.
Captain Stanley heard sirens approaching, from about two blocks away. It would be Engine 110—their station was just a little farther from the scene than 51s.
“Engine 110, from Engine 51. Hold at the hydrant in front of 2202 Fargo.”
“Copy that,” 110’s captain responded.
Now, all Hank could do was wait until his men reported back.
~!~!~!~
There was a flash of pink as Roy opened the gate to the back yard.
A little girl shrieked, and ran away, her damp pink umbrella landing, temporarily forgotten, in front of the two men.
“Daddy, Daddy! It’s strangers! Fireman strangers!”
Roy picked up the pink umbrella and handed it to Johnny.
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Thanks. And, I guess we’re about to find out for sure that this is what we were hopin’ it’d be.”
They rounded the corner.
“Yup,” Roy said.
The grill was up on the back porch. A thirty-something man was scrubbing away at it, occasionally backing away as a gout of smoke burst forth. He froze, as he saw two fully-geared firefighters approaching, one holding a large fire extinguisher, and one holding an axe and his daughter’s pink umbrella.
“Um …” the man said, a greasy metal brush dangling from his hand.
Everyone stood there looking at each other for a second.
Johnny grabbed his radio.
“Cap, it’s a barbecue. On the porch.”
There was a pause—just long enough to give Roy and Johnny time to imagine the expression on Cap’s face, and Mike’s stifled snickers. They’d all silently been hoping it was just a grill, but the fact that it was on the porch would surely get Cap going.
“Copy that. On my way. L.A., from 51. We have a barbecue. Cancel Truck 8, and return Engine 110.”
The wind caught the smoke from the grill just right—or just wrong—and once again blew it up under the roof of the porch, towards the house. Its path of least resistance then became to waft out from under the eaves of the roof of the house, mimicking—at least as observed from a distance—the flow of smoke that could happen in an attic fire.
Captain Stanley rounded the corner, his skunk-striped helmet leading the way.
“Uh, am I in trouble?” the fellow at the grill asked, having reacquired his ability to speak. He looked at Cap, realizing that his different helmet probably meant something.
“Well, you really can’t have your grill on the porch. County ordinance says it needs to be ten feet away from any structures,” Cap said patiently.
“Oh,” the man said. “But I’m not actually cooking anything. I just put it up here so I could, you know, clean it up a little. Burn off the crud. Out of the rain.”
“‘Burn’ being the operative word, here,” Cap said. “Just because you’re not cooking anything, doesn’t mean you’re not creating a hazardous situation.”
As if it were listening, the grill suddenly flared up, a burst of flame spewing up as a glob of grease ignited.
“All right, all right,” the man sighed, as he turned the knob on the grill to shut off the propane. “And who the heck sent you guys, anyhow?”
“I don’t know,” Cap said truthfully. “All that the dispatcher told us was that a neighbor was concerned you had a fire in your attic.”
The man scowled. “Probably Wade Johnson. He’s a nosy parker, all right.”
“Well, if it had been an attic fire, whoever reported it could’ve saved your family’s lives. So if I were you, I’d think twice about getting annoyed about this,” Cap warned. “As for now—I need to hear from you that you’re not going to reignite this grill while it’s on the porch.”
“Yeah, okay, okay. I guess it was a stupid idea.”
Cap was too diplomatic to agree out loud, or even nod. “Oven cleaner spray should do the trick. Make sure you wait till the grill is completely cold before you try it, though.”
“Okay.” The man shifted back and forth on his feet. “So, uh, I don’t get a ticket or anything?”
“I won’t cite you this time. But please, don’t light the grill on your porch again. The ordinance is in place for a reason—in fact, just last spring, a house burned to the ground because of a fire started by a grill on a porch,” Cap said.
“Oh.”
Cap felt a tugging sensation on his coat, and looked down.
“Are you the boss?” the little girl asked.
“Why, yes, I suppose I am,” Captain Stanley said.
“Then can you make him give me my ‘brella back?” she said, pointing accusingly at Johnny.
Johnny looked down at the gear he was holding.
“Huh? Oh. Sorry,” he said, handing the umbrella back to the little girl, handle first.
“Kinda thought it suited you,” Roy said under his breath.
Cap cleared his throat loudly.
“All right, I think we’re all set here, men,” he said. “Sir, take care.”
“You too. And, uh, thanks for not giving me a ticket.”
“You’re welcome. Now, we’ll get out of your hair,” Captain Stanley said. He thumped Roy on the shoulder, ever so slightly harder than was truly companionable, and the three men turned and exited the yard.
Johnny opened the hand-tool compartment on the squad. Loudly.
“Now that was uncalled-for, Roy,” Johnny said, securing the axe and slamming the compartment shut again.
“But you were twirling it,” Roy said, as they got into the squad.
Chet passed by at the worst possible moment.
“Twirling what?” he asked.
“Never mind,” Johnny said, at the exact moment that Roy said “The pink umbrella.”
“Don’t start, Kelly,” Cap warned. “And DeSoto—I’m surprised at you.”
Doors slammed, as the men took their places.
“I wouldn’t’a been twirling it in the first place if you hadn’t handed it to me,” Johnny said.
“I just wanted to see if you’d actually take it,” Roy replied, as he rounded the block, heading back towards the station.
“Don’t know why I even did,” Johnny muttered. “And now Kelly’s got a hold of it. Thanks a lot, partner.”
Roy drove on without saying anything, until the squad was backed into its spot in the bay.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Aw, it’s okay. I know you’ve got my back,” Johnny said.
“Always,” Roy said.
TBC with other stand-alone chapters!