The Toronto Maple Leaf's were playing in the second-round of the N.H.L. playoffs when we got a call to a high-rise building across the street from the station.

We had been to this building many times for false alarms. I was riding on the back of the pumper. When we pulled up in front I grabbed and apartment hose pack, the standpipe connection kit and an extinguisher.

We entered the lobby and learned from the alarm panel that a detector had activated on the eighth floor. We took the elevator to two floors below the fire and walked up the stairs to the fire floor. When we arrived there was no sign of a fire. We walked through the corridor checking the smoke detectors to see if any had activated. None had.

We went door to door asking people if there was a problem inside their unit. No one reported any problem. One guy was watching the hockey game; he wanted to know when we would shut off the alarm bells.

People were home in each apartment except for one. We knocked and felt the door but couldn't tell anything from that. They building superintendent arrived with a master key. He unlocked the door and as we opened it, light smoke rushed out.

We shut the door immediately and donned our SCBA. I took my equipment and connected into the standpipe outlet in the hose cabinet. My partner stretched out one of the apartment hoses and got ready to enter. When everything was ready the Captain gave the signal to charge the hand-line and we entered the apartment. After turning on the water, I've followed the hose up into the apartment. The smoke was light but it filled the unit. I followed the hose to the nozzle and found the Captain and my partner crouched beside the wall.

The fire itself was quite small and it was almost out already. The only thing burning was the carpet and a small section of the wall. As I arrived they were using the extinguisher or on it. The Captain told me that they had no water at the nozzle. He sent me to find out what was wrong.

I backtracked along the hose and found that the follow-up crew from the Rescue trucks had shut down the standpipe valve. I began to open it again when I noticed that the standpipe connection hose had pulled out of the coupling. Any water coming out of the standpipe was just pouring out onto the floor. I went back into the apartment and reported this to the Captain. He said it didn't matter now because the fire was out.

We began to ventilate the unit. We opened all the windows and the patio door onto the balcony. They crew from the rescue truck opened up the door to the stairwell to allow air to flow into the corridor and out through the apartment. They also set up a smoke ejector fan in the doorway of he apartment. As the smoke cleared we began to clean up our equipment.

At this point the building resident who had been watching the hockey game came by to announce that the Leafs had scored with about 50 seconds left and won the game.

The Platoon Chief who had been downstairs directing operations, came up to see the damage and start an investigation. The apartment owners also arrived at about this time and they were quite upset. Overall the damage was light. There was some carpet burned and we had to open up one wall to be sure the fire was out and of course there was smoke damage throughout the unit. We estimated it at about five thousand dollars.

Because we could not identify the cause of the fire, the Platoon Chief decided to turn it over to be fire investigators from the Fire Prevention Division. He called the Chief Fire Prevention Officer and informed him of the situation. The decision was made to continue the investigation in the morning. The owners were going to sleep at a friend's house that night and they would be back in the morning to meet the fire investigators.

We packed up our equipment and left. The building superintendent had already vacuumed up the water in the hallway. When we got back to the station we replaced the broken hose.

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FIRES These are stories about recent fires;

• House Fire
• Tanker Truck to a Garbage Bin Fire
• Tanker Trunk to a Hopper Fire
• Car Fire
• Warehouse Fire
• House Fire
• Apartment Fire
• House Fire

MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS These are stories about car and truck accidents;

• Single Car Rollover
• Head-on Crash
• Rush Hour Accident
• Single Car Flip
• Car vs. Garbage Truck
• Van Rollover
• Sport Utility Vehicle Rollover
• 500m from the Dealership
• Left Turn Mistake

RESCUES These are stories about rescues we have made;

• Man Trapped in a Trailer

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS These are stories about emergencies involving Hazardous Materials;

• No Calls

MEDICAL We go to a lot of medical calls, but it is not fair to the people involved for me to describe their medical problems here. I can tell you about one incident and how it effected me;

• Stress

OTHER Sometimes interesting things happen around the Firehall;

• Skunk in the Firehall