Taming the beast @ Regent Street by Brian Carless on Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 8:38am · the 26th of sept was never gonna be any ordinary day at work. i came in got ready for parade and was assigned to the water tender unit the # 8-4 unit. but we were informed to ready the availability board for changes which i did i was placed on the 10-4 unit which is the aerial truck and i said ok anything is anything. this week is fire awareness week and some bit of activity was taking place @ divisional hq york park. a call of fire came in and the station was alarmed @ approximately 11:30 am and i said is what a gwaan? a request for the water tender was made and shortly after the station was alarmed again and my unit was the next to respond. on reaching near the given location thick smoke was seen going up in the air. when the big unit turn on to the street where the fire was on scores of person flocked the fire truck. i felt i was like in the movie black hawk down people like dirt. i had a young crew with me young green fireman, but working with them for a while i knew they were capable of doing a good job. we remained calm in all this. i was the 1st to get off and right to the belly of the best i went, but the civilians were all over the place we had to take charge of the situation. in a few secs i could feel the hose line filled with water and rite away we got into action. but the beast of a fire was burning out of control, this ain't no ladder 49 or back draft as Hollywood would depict. and attacked we did but this fire was really fierce it really fought us back. additional units were called in from rollington town,half way tree and even as far from Spanish town. the young fire fighters that were on my unit really worked hard trust me, but i suffered from some serious heat exhaustion, i had to take a break and find a shop and bought a Gatorade and a some water. lucky thing i had may wallet with me. but sprang rite back into action, i never drank so much in a long while. the beast of a fire was finally controlled and cooling down operations took place. but at times u cant do enuff for people. mixed reactions from joe public,but is only times like this persons see the dangers of our job. the mayor and former mayor who is the MP for the area, the city engineer, the minister and his deputy were all present on the scene, with the media houses both print and electronic. our unit was withdrawn from the scene and we returned to station. all on hand did a great job, we take on any job anytime. at this time our shift was changed and we were all dead beat. everything soaked to the bone, smoke perspiration and water soaked everything was. but fire is a dangerous and deadly beast which is always on the prowl, but as the guardians and the nite watchmen that we used to be in the past, we still on the hunt for the beast called FIRE.