The practical side of the fire class -- when we get into our gear and test our capacity to sweat profusely -- takes up over twice as much time as the classroom lecture part. That seems indicative of what's involved in firefighting. I've always liked EMS because it is a fusion of the mental and the physical, but firefighting is a fusion of the mental, the physical, and the metaphysical. It prompts deep spiritual questions, like: what am I willing to endure simply because my Pride refuses to let me give up? How much will people suffer before they start puking into their SCBA face masks? How much worse can this get?

[Answers: 1) a lot, 2) a lot, 3) a lot ]

The turnout coat and pants are designed to protect the firefighter against temperatures up to 1000°F. They seem roughly that effective at keeping heat in, too, and the only thing that must prevent the firefighter from spontaneously combusting from stored body heat is the gallons of sweat generated. It feels like donning a heavy winter coat and snow pants on a toasty summer day. Then there are the heavy rubberized boats with the metal shank, and the leather gloves, and the fire-resistant hood, and the helmet. And the compressed air tank strapped to the back, feeding a mask that covers the face from forehead to chin.

Geared up, I'm about as graceful as a B-movie zombie. I seriously doubt that I've developed enough firefighter panache to compensate. I probably look less like a firefighter than some schmuck hired to be an extra on Third Watch, and I feel like a kid who's dressed up in dad's duds.

We spent most of Saturday going over our equipment, getting fitted for an SCBA mask, and donning and doffing our gear over and over again. To pass one practical station on the exam you must be able to put on your turnout gear in under one minute, and then get your SCBA on in another minute. It sounds ridiculously easy, but the problem is that it must be done with care, because in addition to looking studly the suit keeps one from being horrifically burned. Any skin left showing, like between the hood and the SCBA mask, had better be skin you were planning to get rid of anyway.

The remainder of Day 1 consisted of gearing up and being run up and down the dark staircases in the seven-story "burn building." The equipment easily adds forty pounds to one's weight, and it is mercilessly hot, clumsy, and enclosing. The SCBA feeds you air when you inhale, but there is that brief instant when one has to pull to receive the next breath, and when you're gasping with the exertion it can feel like it's refusing to give you enough air. A few people succumbed to the claustrophobic sensation and pulled their facemasks off, earning an immediate furious response from one of the instructors. Pulling off your mask is one thing you must never do, do matter how panicked you may feel, and the instructors are determined to extinguish this primitive response from our available neural pathways.

As people began to flag and tire, fall behind or try to sneak a rest, the level of motivational rhetoric from the instructors went up a notch. It vacillated between inspirational ("Be proud of what you are!") and biting ("You'd better decide whether you've got what it takes to be a firefighter!"), all flavored with a boot camp sensibility.

To my surprise, I found myself exhausted by this initial session. Equally surprising, I found that the military-style yelled encouragement they dished out was having the desired effect. I was absolutely determined to prove that I do have what it takes, and refused to consider the tantalizing prospect of stopping for a moment to rest or throw up. While I was already nervous about the more physically demanding classes to come, I didn't anticipate that this intense cardiovascular work would be difficult for me. I'm thin, eat well, get moderate exercise. Other classmates were similarly affected, but I had naturally expected to leave them in the dust. Instead, I witnessed the thin line between endurance and failure, and how determination can build a low wall that's just enough to keep you from sliding over the edge. At that point, I would take my determination where I could get it.

The instructors made sure everyone understood that we would look back on this day as the easiest part of the whole class.

I started jogging a couple days later. Clearly, I would never make it through the class unless I got serious about getting into excellent physical condition. Ego had kept me going during day one, but I can't count on it exclusively.

I've always thought of joggers as uncreative masochists. The combination of boredom and pain that it engenders is nearly intolerable to me. But I found new motivation to endure, perhaps even embrace, pain in the fire class. Pain can build determination, and determination makes pain more endurable. I set my sights on the immediate future: all I have to do is survive the fire class. Only fifteen more weeks.