Tuesday, July 13, 2010 On 2/20/10 at 0400 hours I reponded on a two man engine out of district to a neighboring volunteer fire district for a structure fire. While enroute dispatch reported a person trapped per the Police on scene. At this point my partner and I discussed our priority was to rescue the victim upon arriving on scene. Our engine arrived 30 seconds behind the volunteer company. They began deploying handlines to a basement fire. Fire was visible in the rear basement of a one story residential. My partner and I met with police to gather information on the victims location. We entered the side door on the first floor and proceded through a kitchen and down a narrow hallway. My partner took the first room on the right (Bathroom) I proceded to the end of the hall which was the bedroom. I discovered the victim laying next to the bed on the floor unconscious. I called for my partner and radiod out to IC that we had the victim and were exiting the building with the victim. We handed the victim off at the side door and reentered the building to continue our search. At this point what we did't know was the engine company attacking the fire was having water problems and there was no ventilation taking place. We continued our search for a few minutes with deteriorating conditions. Zero visibilty with intense heat. We tried to radio a few times asking the status of the fire and requesting information on any additional victims with no response. At this point it just didn't feel right. My partner and I decided to leave the building and regroup. We started to exit down the hallway and into the kitchen. When we got into the kitchen we would follow the counter and end up in the living room. The door we entered was in the kitchen and we couldn't find it. We made three attempts, additionally we called out to command and operations with no response. At that point we knew we were disoriented and we needed help to get out. My partner and I got together in the kitchen and called a mayday. I gave our location in the building as well as the first floor location. Almost immediately we heard the RIT coming up the porch stairs. They entered the building under extreme heat and zero visibility. We could here them coming and yelled back and forth until we could see there hand lights. They escorted us out of the building. Once removed from the building I discovered 2nd degree burns on both my knees. I went to the local clinic and was out of work for 2 weeks.

LESSONS LEARNED: One of the biggest lessons learned is know your surroundings. Now that I think about it I never heard or felt any water attacking the fire below us. Additionally I didn't hear any windows breaking for ventilation. Fire scene communications are always a problem in these situations. If we had an understanding of how advanced the fire was we wouldn\'t of put ourselves at rick to search for additional victims.