Maya's Next Step

Part 30

Maya POV.

"Okay, nobody goes off on their own. Hughes, Montgomery you're together. Miller, Warren pair up. Gibson you're with me and Herrera," I ordered.

"We've been instructed to hit the Charlie Delta side from inside. This is a 25 story building, it's a big one. Keep your radios on and I want updates every 2 minutes, you clear," I shouted over the noise of all the other stations, engines and gathering crowd.

There was a chorus of "Yes captain," as the team dispersed.

The second Jack, Andy and I entered the building the heat hit us. This was not going to be easy.

We were surrounded by other fire fighters checking out to refill oxygen tanks and for short breaks.

"What's the plan captain?" Gibson asked.

"We go high, work our way down, hit it with a direct attack," I explained.

"Station 19 update," I called down the radio as we climbed flight after flight of stairs.

"We're putting the wet stuff on the red stuff," Miller said.

"Same here, on floor 7," Hughes added.

We finally reached the 20th floor, we were told anything further up was too dangerous to tackle at the moment and the roof was too unstable to ventilate.

"Let's start in there," Herrera said pointing to the left.

Gibson kicked down the door.

There was a small flare up which he quickly extinguished with foam.

We pushed forward, it appeared to be an office space full of rows and rows of desks and computers.

"If we can get to the door on the other side, we might be able to tackle some of the blaze that's higher up," Andy suggested.

"Let's do it," I called.

We were half way through the office when an explosion occurred somewhere close to us. We were all knocked to the floor with the impact.

"That sounded like it came from the floor above," Gibson shouted.

"Guys we're trapped," Andy shouted.

I looked at both our exits. The one we'd entered through was now blocked. And the other seemed to be the only thing concealing us from the huge fire behind it.

"Guys check in," I called down the radio.

"All okay, the explosion was floor 21," Montgomery replied.

Shit. We were floor 20.

"19, Gibson, Herrera and I are trapped in the office space on the 20th floor, no accessible exists. Potential risk of flashover," I informed them.

"We'll get you, stay low," Hughes said.

Until somebody came to support the structure, we couldn't attempt to gain access to the blocked exit.

Just then, there was another explosion. We threw ourselves to the floor.

"We need to keep low," I shouted.

We crawled along the floor and moved as far as we could away from the other door.

"We need to regulate our oxygen, we don't know how long we're gonna be trapped for," Gibson said.

"We can't be trapped for long. That door won't hold much longer," Herrera said.

"Hughes status update," I radioed.