MATTRESS FIRES
BY FRANK C. MONTAGNA
The firefighter crawls into the room. Even through the thick smoke he can see the red glow ahead of him. He moves in closer to the fire, and he can feel its heat. It`s a mattress fire. He points the nozzle of his 212-gallon water extinguisher at the flames and depresses the trigger. The water hits the base of the fire and quenches the flames. He can see only blackness now as he uses up the remaining water in the extinguisher--just to be sure. To his right, he can hear his officer searching the room for victims. "I got it, Captain," he shouts, his voice muffled by his facepiece. "It was a mattress." Putting down his extinguisher, he sweeps his arm across the surface of the mattress and then his leg under the bed, hoping not to find a victim.
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