I had no idea. If I had stopped to think about it, I might have guessed this was a problem with paramedics, but I never would have guessed it about firefighters.

Thanks for posting this.

Makes me wonder if when some of those dudes go all in towards certain doom it's because of a death wish.

I was going to share a livejournal/personal experience kind of thing about my own house fire experience, but I deleted that.

I talked to people after our fire, about fires that happened locally, though, and many were worse than what my family went through. One family lost both their kids when the son went back into the burning building to try to save his sister. I mean, I guess I get where he was coming from. People were shouting NO! and telling him it's too dangerous, but when someone's heart is being torn by the potential loss of losing someone close like that, you can't stop them. If he hadn't tried, and he lived, who knows if he could have lived with the guilt or wondering what could have happened. In his eyes, she was worth the risk.

It's not like in movies, where people seem to have all the time in the world to exit a building. Smoke is a motherfucker. There is stuff in it that is liquid while the smoke is hot, and when it cools down, it leaves a grime all over everything. It seeps into everything that isn't watertight. And you're breathing that crap in. Drywall, melted plastic, wiring, insulation, paint, electronics burning up, on top of wood, carpet, vinyl siding if your house has it, whatever your doorknobs are made of, whatever trash or recycling you haven't taken out yet - I mean there's a lot of crap that is not supposed to be in your lungs and in hot, liquid form, it will take you out faster than you'd think.