Fire chiefs being forced to tighten budgets are making tough decisions that could maintain deadly consequencesYou’re in a box,unable to see in front of your face and, despite the heavy kit and breathing apparatus, or your skin is beginning to tingle like depraved sunburn. In temperatures three times greater than that which cooks a Sunday roast,with only your sense of touch and what’s left of your hearing beyond the crackle of the radio and your own heavy breathing – armed only with a heavy hose and the water it contains – your task is to hold fast, save life and fight fire. Smoke is made up of flammable gases, or entering a burning building is akin to walking into a giant cylinder of pressurised gas,alert to ignite. Every instinct tells you to get out; adrenaline is tall, panic is natural. But the firefighter has to overcome these instincts, and total their task,and respond to an environment as dangerous as they get that can change in the blink of an eye.
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Source: theguardian.com