I like coming back to the station after a fire, smudged and achy, and performing all the little housekeeping tasks to get the rescue squad back in service. We refill the air cylinders for the SCBA, wash out facepieces, and get our gear back in order. People assigned to the other units wander by and say "How was the fire?" and I shrug, not wanting to betray how keyed up I still am about it. I reek of smoke -- not the clean scent of a fireplace but the dank rubbery odor of a building in danger of going up.

I like to think about how fire and rust are the same: just oxidization taking place at wildly different speeds. I know it's a chemical oversimplification but it's still appealing. It suggests that what I face as I pull on my mask, crank on the air cylinder, and replace my helmet outside the burning deli is no more exciting than an old truck sitting out in the yard and going to pieces over the years. That same slow, mundane deterioration is simply being compressed into a few minutes and will be taking place all around me and in the seething air over my head.

And meanwhile, all around us, everything that rusts and corrodes is infintessimally burning, being consumed in a slow conflagration.

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