“Folding shirts again? We’re supposed to teach him,” Luna said. It was better that she hadn’t noticed Kevin had sent Carver to mop the barn, the giant garage containing their three rigs, all afternoon.
“Maybe we should teach him how to follow protocol instead. Be seen and not heard instead of running his mouth to the Chief,” Vanessa said. Erin noticed she didn’t mention Carver had unintentionally disclosed Luna’s romantic entanglements to the Chief.
“Everybody was a probie once.” Luna waved her hand. “He made a rookie mistake. Erin, can you get him?”
“Do I have to? Can’t I knock all the shirts off and make him re-fold them?” she offered, getting to her feet. “That’s what Kevin does.”
“It’s good for the soul,” Kevin said, flexing his huge biceps. “Makes you a man, pumping shirts.”
Erin walked past their individual bunk rooms and to the laundry room near the upstairs lockers. They usually changed into their uniforms on the second floor and kept their turnout pants, turnout jackets, and boots near the trucks. “Hey, probie, come on. It’s chow time and probie education session time.”
Carver had a pile of badly folded laundry in front of him. “Is it a pop-quiz in the art of folding fitted sheets?”
“That’s cute, probie. Come on, lieutenants’re going to talk to you.”
While she was gone, Aiden had made a city map out of the knives, forks, and cups.
Carver sat down across from Aiden; Luna was sitting at the end of the table with Vanessa in between the two of them. “What’s this?”
“It’s our service area,” Aiden said, “Over the next couple weeks, we’re going to take you on ride-alongs with us to flush hydrants, familiarize yourself with the different areas, and see some of our building inspections.”
“Here we are, four blocks from MetroGen. That has fourteen floors,” Vanessa pointed to a tower of cups.
“I’m familiar with MetroGen.” Everyone except Luna rolled their eyes.
“Now, six blocks to the west, what do we call this?” Aiden tapped a set of napkins lined up in a line.
“That would be Doctor Row,” Carver answered. The area around MetroGen had gentrified in the past decades and was named for its large amount of resident housing.
“Tell me the basic layout of a house at Doctor Row?” Vanessa said.
“They aren’t houses. Those are attached townhouses,” Carver answered.
“What type of construction with how many exits? Describe the general occupancy,” Luna requested.
“They’re type III ordinary construction. They have front doors and back garages. It’s mostly resident housing. Med students live in the dorm to the east, out of our service area.”
Aiden was less than happy. “Erin, take over.”
Erin had been picked to correct him because she lived on Doctor Row. “It’s not type III. It’s type V wood frame construction because it’s newer. The rowhouses are mostly one and two bedrooms with a scattering of three-bedrooms. They have shared walls with multiple void spaces in the vertical architecture. The second stories are mostly loft storage or extensions of the garages. Residents and fellows may not need a lot of living space, but they like their storage.”
“Further west takes you into more housing and businesses. North is toward Lake Erie and downtown. What is the tallest building in Cleveland?” Luna threw Carver a freebie.
“Key Tower,” he answered correctly.
“Please explain some of the basic hazards of firefighting in a high-rise building,” Luna said.
“Our equipment can’t reach the higher floors. Nothing gets above the fifth floor.”
“Go on,” Aiden said.
“Our water is supplied through the standpipes in the hallways that is pumped from the ground floor.”
“Better not be in the hallways,” Aiden snapped.
“The stairwells. The standpipes are in the stairwells,” Carver corrected himself.
“Where is the central command post?” Vanessa asked.
