Chapter 25

I turned and jogged across the parking lot to the stairs. I heard Sherry's door shut behind me as I took the stairs two at a time. I turned and waved as I topped the steps, and was answered with a couple quick beeps of the horn.

Once inside the truck, I locked the CD in the console, buckled up and headed for town.

Our fire department is one of the few that doesn't believe in red lights and sirens for personal vehicles. We believe that it only encourages crazy driving. It must work, because as far as I know, we haven't ever had an accident for a firefighter coming to the station. No one around us that allows red lights can say that.

In any event, I drove quickly but sanely to the station, where I was directed to get my gear on and wait for the Squad to pick up a couple others and me who'd straggled in.

It was a short ride to the senior housing building. I was pretty familiar with it from the numerous medical and "burnt food" box alarms we'd run there. As I rode over, I reflected on what I knew.

It was a three-story wood-frame building built in a "V" shape. The entry on the first floor was the apex of the "V" with an elevator in the center and a stairwell for each wing. Each wing had twelve apartments on each side of the hallway, and a stairwell at each end.

The apex was a lounge area, and was separated from the wing by automatic fire doors.

I'd never liked the design of the place. It was framed completely from wood with large, open void spaces between each floor and an enormous empty loft that ran the length of each wing. The ONLY reason that the building could meet code was that it was heavily sprinklered. Each void area was sprinklered, as was the loft, hallways and each apartment area. I was never comfortable depending so heavily on the sprinkler to stop a fire.

As it turned out, there were other potential problems I'd never considered.