Suddenly, we all swayed to one side as the engine’s wheels hit the blacktop that carved a path away from town. And soon, everything outside of the window turned black, and it stayed that way for the most part, until I would spot, every once in a while, a porch light on in a house at least a half of a mile or so off the road.

It was another ten minutes, though, before the engine slowed and took a turn at a place far enough outside of town that any other time would have taken a good fifteen to get to. And it was only then that I could see the smoke. It was illuminated in the dark by the flames beneath it. But even it was still a ways away, at the end of a long driveway. I swayed to the side as the engine turned sharply again and followed a bend in the path, finally revealing a clearing. Then, I could see the fire’s flames threatening to reach above the tree tops on one side of the house. It was a pretty big house, but that one side looked pretty shot.

Adrenaline instinctively shot through my veins. Fire could be a pretty devastating creature on the life people worked so hard to create, and this blaze looked as though it was no exception.

We neared the house, and I could see a couple of people standing outside. A woman was crying. I recognized her, but I didn’t know her well. Her kids went to the school in the town up the road. And there was another woman with her, and she looked as if she was dialing something on her phone.

The brakes on the truck squealed to a halt seconds later, thrusting my chest forward. And as if it were second nature, we all flung open our doors and jumped out. Bryan immediately went to the top of the truck, and I grabbed a line of the thick hose and threw it over my shoulder.

“Will,” I heard my name shouted.

I glanced up and spotted the captain near the two women. At the same time, another volunteer grabbed the hose from my shoulder and took off with it toward the house.

“We’ve got a man inside looking for a dog,” the captain said. “We need to get him out of there.”

I nodded my head, and my oversized, hard hat moved with it. Then, the captain sprinted toward the house with an ax in his hand, and I followed after him, sliding my mask over my face.

The door to the house was wide open when we reached it. And inside, it was dark, and the air was thick.

The captain immediately bent down and started crawling along the floor. I did the same, trying to stay as close as possible to him as he tapped his ax against the floor to make sure it was stable. But with each foot, the air got warmer and thicker, and the popping and the cracking of the fire got louder in my ears.

I turned my head from side to side, looking in corners and down hallways, searching for the man through the smoky haze. I couldn’t see the fire, but I knew it was slowly eating its way over to our side of the house and that with each inch forward, we were that much closer to its flames.

Suddenly, the captain stopped in front of an open door. I stopped too and peered inside. Beyond the doorway, there were stairs leading down to a basement, and there was clearly a light on in one of the corners.

We stood there motionless for a moment. Then, I thought I heard something.

“I think he’s down there,” I said, through my mask.

I watched as the captain first glanced down the hallway in front of us. The flames were popping out of the rooms on the far end of the house now. We could have minutes, or we could have seconds. Either way, it wasn’t much time.

I eventually followed the captain’s gaze back to the flight of stairs before he angled his face toward mine and nodded. That was my cue, I guessed, because our next steps were down the series of wooden planks.

As our boots hit each board, I gripped with my gloved hand the banister. And seconds later, we were both at the bottom of the stairs and standing on a concrete floor. To the far right of us, the ceiling had already started to give way. A wooden beam was sticking halfway out of the first floor. It was charred black at its end. And through the hole it had left, I could see the big, orange flames raging their chaos above us.

“I’m over here,” called out a strained voice from the other side of the basement.

The voice was faint, and I wasn’t quite sure how I had heard it over the fire’s havoc in the background.

I turned to see a man slumped over a box in a corner. He was conscious, but from the way it looked, he was barely conscious.

I patted the captain on the shoulder and then hurried over to the man. When I reached him, I took off my mask and put it to his face. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but it looked as if he could barely keep his eyes open. He was probably one breath away from passing out.

“Put your mask back on, Will,” the captain yelled when he reached me.

He hastily removed my mask from the man’s face and shoved it into my chest. Then, he took his mask and forced it over the man’s nose and mouth.

“Here, help me get him up,” he shouted.

I watched him bend low and throw the man’s arm around his shoulder. I slid my mask back on and did the same on the other side, and together, we hoisted the man to his feet and started toward the stairs again.

But before we had even made it a couple of steps, there was a dog bark, and the man seemed to come to again and lift the mask from his face.

“My son’s dog,” he said, stopping and trying to turn back.

“It’s all right,” the captain shouted. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Please,” the man cried, locking his heavy gaze on me.

I lifted my eyes and found the captain’s stare, and I knew immediately what he was commanding me to do.

Then, suddenly, a beam crashed to the concrete floor on the other side of the big room, and the loud sound it made caught the attention of all three of us.

“Is there an exit down here?” the captain asked the man.

The man’s eyes glazed over in fear. I looked up and caught the captain’s stare again, and then we followed the man’s gaze to a door now completely engulfed in flames.

“Come on,” the captain shouted, pulling the man up the stairs.

The man hesitated but soon complied, allowing us to guide him to the door at the top of the steps. I stopped once we got there. The fire down the hallway was closer than it had been before we had gone down the stairs, but it looked as if there was still some time before the last exit to the basement was completely closed off by the flames. And I knew I was fast. I could do it.

The captain and the man made it a couple more steps before they noticed I wasn’t by their side.

“Will, let’s go,” the captain yelled behind him.

I glanced at the fire down the hallway one more time, then at the captain. There was a brief second where our eyes met, and then I turned and flew down the stairs.

“Will,” I heard him call out after me.

But I was already down the flight of stairs, and I couldn’t turn back. In fact, I had gotten back to that small corner so quickly that I hadn’t even realized the steps I had taken to get there.

Once in the corner, I shoved the box away. The dog was there in a tiny crawl space, whimpering, with its tail between its legs.

“Come on, boy,” I said into my mask, squatting down and reaching out a gloved hand.

He was just far enough back there that only the tip of my glove could reach his fur.

I squatted down even more and squeezed my shoulders as much as I could into the crawl space. With my hand blindly reaching now, I felt the dog’s leg and then its shoulder, and then in one, solid effort, I grabbed a hold of its skin. I pulled the dog closer to me until I could reach it with both hands. Then, I scooped it up into my arms and flew back to the base of the stairs. But when I looked up, my heart sank into my boots, and I stood there for a moment staring at the doorway, now covered in a thick cloud of billowing, black smoke. And behind it, was a fierce, bright glow.