Fire Power

Doug Donnan
Exective Editor/OM-GEN+
donnan.doug@yahoo.com                                                                        

                                                      

 

                        

                                                        

  

 'Fire Power!'                           

                                                             

    by  Doug Donnan 

             

              [Blue Spruce Estates, Northern Colorado]

     “I can tell ya’ this much Schiller,” Drennan sighed as he stood there in the

roiling heat and lightly falling ash flakes, “Sheriff Polk is on his way up here as we

speak and he’s gonna’ pull the plug on all of us. I talked with him on my cell phone

just a few minutes ago.  He told me that from most of the reports he’s gotten, one of

the damn wildfire offshoots is headin’ right smack dab this way. That means we ain’t

got much time to get… say Kyle, what the hell is that goop you’re sprayin’ all over

that house of yours anyway?”

     “It’s called Blaze Balm,” Schiller replied as he now aimed the spray nozzle of the

hose in the direction of his bump-out white cinder block garage. The fire suppressant

itself was a clear gelatinous substance that adhered to things more like some kind of

sperm-like epoxy than anything else. “A buddy of mine back east told me about it.

He sent me out a few of these barrels here last year,” he said as he swept his gloved

hand over the three large gray drums beside him there on the driveway. “It’s a

state-of-the-art fire suppressant. One hundred per cent guaranteed effective! All I had

to do was hook up one of my garden hoses to this special adapter and screw it into this

barrel here, pump it up a few times and I was good to go.”

     “You think that goop will work? I mean look at your house. It looks like something

out of an eerie science fiction movie, almost as if it’s… melting.” 

     “My buddy told me that it washes right off after the fire or heat source burns out or

passes by…just hose it all off with water! It's approved by The United States Forestry

Service.

     He said that they even use this product all over China! The American company that

makes Blaze Balm has a ten-year distribution contract with them! Hell Dave, that’s

good enough for me!” Schiller exclaimed. The nozzle of his hose began to spit and

sputter somewhat as he stepped around and attempted to apply a final coating to the

side and back of his red brick ranch house. “Looks like I’m about outa’ juice here,”

he said as he shook the nozzle a bit.

     

     As the two neighbors stood there on the grassy knoll that separated their two homes,

the indifferent burnt orange sun began to sink into the surrounding sea of swaying blue

spruce and towering pine trees. The pungent scent of wood smoke was growing by the

minute. It now was all but snowing tiny flakes of ash and cinders as dusk loomed all

around them like some nebulous gray shroud. 

     “How much of that stuff have you got left…ol’ friend?” Drennan asked as he

stepped in a little closer as if he were now trying to guard some sort of life and

death secret.

    

     “One more barrel,” Schiller replied as he wiped over his sweating face with a
crumpled red bandana. “I promised that to Sam Templeton down the street. I told him
I’d run it by his place as soon as I finished up here. Would you mind helpin’ me load it
up into the back of my truck here Dave?”

   

      “Hmm,” from a pensive Drennan as he turned and scanned over his now soot

covered two story place next door. “I don’t know Kyle,” he said rather flatly.

“Seems to me you could of at least checked in with me before…I mean you know,

us bein’ such close neighbors and all,” he stammered somewhat as he looked all

around and about.

     “Now hold on there a second Dave,” Schiller turned to and set his fists up into the

rolls of leisure that padded his hips. “It seems to me I mentioned this to you some time

ago that I was getting this stuff, and that I was going to try it out just in case there was

ever some kind of an emergency…like this damn out of control forest fire that’s bearin’

down on us. You didn’tseem particularly interested as I recall. On the other hand I saw

Templeton in town one day and after mentioning the suppressant to him, he was all

in for it. He wrote me out a check for two hundred bucks right then and there at the

Sav-O-Mat gas station. So, all things considered, I’d let you have this last barrel here

but my hands are tied. You gotta’ understand—"

     “What’s goin’ on over there David,” a little blonde woman called out as she was

desperately trying to balance a stack of cardboard boxes out to an ash covered black

Jeep Wagoneer just next door.

     “Nothing Miriam dear,” Drennan replied. “Just a slight difference of opinion.

Kyle here has something that could probably help save our house from the damn fire…

that’s all.”

     Almost simultaneously did his wife drop the boxes and Schiller drop his head.

She came over to them on the common ground between the two houses as though

might be heading in to battle. And so, as it turns out, the previously simmering

neighborly discussion soon turned into a tempered quarrel, then a bitter and blatant

argument. Other neighbors in the vicinity abandoned their hurried evacuation plans

and gathered around the scene only to have the entire argument quickly turn into a

burgeoning battle over the remaining barrel of Blaze Balm. The chaos and cutting

comments now built like an out of control wildfire.

      “Jesus, Schiller…how long have you been hidin’ this stuff from the rest of us?”

     “I’ll give ya’ three thousand bucks for that last barrel Schiller,” called out a

normally prudish lawyer named Jenkins who had a two-story white clapboard Colonial

style three bedroom two and a half bath affair down by the red-brick and mortar

entrance to the sprawling gated community.

      “It don’t seem right that he should be the only one to be protected!” yelled a

slovenly little hog-faced man from across the street wearing a threadbare Denver

Bronco’s cap. “Why can’t we just open it on up and give everybody’s house a few

squirts? It only seems fair to share and share alike.  I mean what the hell, we’re all

good friends and neighbors here… right?” 

     Just then Sam Templeton slowly pulled up in a red, ash covered Ford Bronco.

He switched down the passenger window: “What’s goin’ on Kyle? I thought you

were comin’ over with that…” he hesitated somewhat as he soon sized up the

situation out amongst all the edgy and elongated shadows of his seemingly now

decidedly hostile fellow neighbors.

     “Well, well, well,” Drennan spoke out as the entire group fanned out around the

now wary and retreating Schiller. Schiller had let out some of the length on the now

detached garden hose. He took a cautious stance just out in front of the barrel,

slightly spinning the hose in a little looping, defensive manner. “There he is folks,

he’s come to see what the hold-up is on his barrel. You might as well turn that car

around Sam. The plans have changed a bit!”

    

     “Yeh, we’ve decided to confiscate the drum of anti-fire stuff. Maybe will share it,

kinda’ spread it around…so to speak,” declared Jenkins as he snatched up a leaning

rake there by the guttering of Drennan’s house. He held it high as if it was some kind

of spear or war pike.  

     “Maybe, we could draw straws or have some kind of makeshift lottery real quick,”

suggested Drennan’s wife Miriam as she now latched onto her husband’s balled fist.

     “I got a solution,” Hog-face broke in from off in the shrubbery shadows of the

grassy knoll. He drew a little blue-black pistol from his pants pocket and held it up

high and shiny for all to see. “Instead of waistin’ time screwin’ around out here, why

don’t I just roll that barrel across the street and start hosein’ down my house…first.”

     At this point Schiller began to whip and whirl the hose high overhead. The entire

situation soon turned into a frightening frenzy of feigning fisticuffs, threatening shouts

and decidedly malicious invective. Eventually, there was a ringing report from the man’s

gun. The errant bullet pinged into the base of the drum. The gelatinous goo burst out

from the now de-pressurized  barrel like a small atomic explosion. In only moments,

as if the barrel was now wounded and bleeding, the fire retardant began to gurgle out

onto the open grass. They all stopped and stared wide-eyed there under the now

brightening pale light of the indifferent waxing moon.

                                                              *     *     *                                                            

     Almost immediately, the distant sound of a booming bullhorn cut into the eerie

silence that had now surrounded the feuding figures. The blaring sound was emanating

from a slowly approaching black and white police car. Flashing blue and red lights

lit up the various houses and cars as the patrol car wound its way down the central

roundabout road. The loud mobile message soon became perfectly clear and sobering

to the entire group of brooding neighbors: 

    ‘Attention Blue Spruce Estates Residents…Attention Blue

Spruce Estates Residents…The fire has now been contained…

The National Forest Service and the Colorado State Firefighters

have announced that the fire is now one hundred per cent

contained…Repeating the fire has been one hundred per cent

contained…It is now safe to return to your homes…It is now

safe to return to your homes…

     The slowly advancing police car eventually glided up just along side Sam

Templeton’s idling Bronco. The ominous squad car with its, flashing lights came to

a stop just abreast of the group of moonlit neighbors . The driver directed the beam

of his high intensity spotlight all around the stationary, shell shocked residents.

They could almost feel the light hit them.    

     It was Sheriff Polk.

     “Evenin’ folks,” he said as he stepped out of the car and dramatically stepped

forward into the light there amongst them in the grassy common ground. “Kinda’

dark out for a neighborhood watch meetin’ or whatever…don’t ya’ think?”

     “Hello there sheriff,” Drennan spoke up as he stepped forward. “I talked to you

on the phone earlier. We we’re just having sort of a misunderstanding I guess you

could say about… property rights.”

     Polk scanned the area briefly and then stepped over to the leaking black barrel.

He pushed it over on its side. “Okay everyone, I don’t want to know what you’re

really doing out here at this hour considering everything that’s goin’ on all around you,

but the important thing is that the fire has been one hundred per cent contained. You

can all go on back to your homes now.”

     Polk eyeballed a few of them rather curiously as he stepped back over to his squad

car. he soon dropped inside and prepared to drive off.

     “Say sheriff,” Schiller now called out as he dropped his wiggly weapon there in front

of everyone. “Just one more thing before you go. One of my good neighbors here

Dave Drennan,” he hooked a rude thumb over his shoulder at the now self-effacing

Drennan and his blushing wife, “told me earlier that you said that damn fire was

bearing down on our friendly little neighborhood here bigger than life. What the

hell happened?”

     “One of the fire marshals on the frontline told me they decided to have their

boys in the choppers try droppin’ a new powerful fire retardant…sumthin’ called

Blaze Balm. The stuff must work pretty damn good I’d say. It’s a pretty safe bet

that it saved all your homes and your ‘friendly’ little neighborhood,” he said flatly

as he winked out at their now slightly drifting silhouettes. “Fire Chief told me it

comes in a plain old gray drum, kinda’ like that one you got there with that...

bullet hole in it!”

     Sheriff Polk left them there hanging their heads. He drove away, slowly, with his

flashing overhead lights on and his booming bullhorn sounding off anew:

    ‘Attention Blue Spruce Estates Residents…It is now safe to

return to your homes…I repeat…It is now safe to... return to...

your homes'

                                                _____ The End _____