Report From Rescue Company 1

by BRBrony9

Beginnings

It was a cold and grey morning in early spring, much like any other in Manehattan. Though the winter was over, its chill had not yet left the coastal city; the trees were still mostly bare. That was why Ember Blaze, a five year old colt, and his scrawny younger brother Ember Dawn, were inside in their room, and not playing in the street as they would likely be doing were the weather more conducive to it.

Instead, the older colt, a copper-brown earth pony just like his brother, though with a red main and tail to Dawn's dark blue, was busy colouring one of his many drawings. He liked to draw; perhaps he would be a painter or a graphic designer one day. Their mother, Morning Glow, was an artist; at least, an amateur one. She worked as a library assistant for the city, while the old stallion of the family also worked for a municipal agency. Blaze Beater was a firepony, and not just any firepony. He was a long-standing member of Rescue Company Number 1, the best of the best. Currently, he was off-duty, in the lounge down the hall, and, like many fireponies of his vintage, incongruously smoking a pipe.

Ember Blaze worked on his drawing, but found himself being distracted by shouts from outside. He tried to ignore them. Probably just some neighbourhood kids braving the weather for a game of hoofball. But the shouts persisted, and with a frown, Blaze got up and went to the window to see what was going on. His eyes widened as soon as he reached the window, and he turned to shout.

'Dad! Daddy! There's a fire across the street!'

He got no response from the lounge. 'Daddy!' he called again. But Blaze Beater wasn't in the lounge any longer. Ember Blaze watched in shock as he saw his father galloping across the street. He was off duty, but he was still a firepony, and up he went, up the fire escape of the six-story tenement building. The fire was burning on the third floor, already venting out of two windows at the front of the structure. Blaze found himself joined at the window by his brother.

'Look! There's daddy, see?' Blaze pointed, guiding Dawn's vision. Their father was already at the third floor, finding an open window, and in he went from the side, disappearing into the burning building.

'Where did daddy go?' Dawn gasped. 'Where is he? There's a fire!' He pointed out the obvious.

'Don't worry, bro. It's daddy! This is his job,' Blaze assured his younger sibling. 'He does it all the time!'

That may have been true, but neither brother had ever seen their father in action like this before. Ponies were gathering in the street, while others were making their way down the fire escape from the higher floors, fleeing for their lives. Thirty tense seconds passed, then thirty more, and then finally, Blaze Beater reappeared, but he was not alone. Slumped across his back was the prone figure of a mare, slumped, unconscious. Blaze Beater pushed his way through the descending ponies onto the fire escape and carried her down to the street.

'See? Daddy's ok!' Blaze grinned. 'He saved somepony!'

Dawn clapped his hooves happily. 'Daddy hero! Daddy hero!' he repeated. But Blaze Beater wasn't done, and up he went again, pushing through the throng. Some of their neighbours knew he was a firepony, and others simply saw the authority he exuded and let him pass. Into the inferno he went again, as the wail of sirens began to fill the street.

'Daddy gone again!' Dawn cried, but Blaze calmed him.

'Look, fire trucks, see? Look there!' He leaned as far out as the safety window would allow, pointing. Racing down the block came two big, red vehicles, white-and-red lights blazing in the spring gloom. The first vehicle pulled past the fire building before coming to a halt with a loud hiss of air brakes. The larger vehicle, the one with the huge ladder mounted on top, came to a stop right in front of the burning structure. Fireponies jumped down from the cab, slamming doors and opening compartments. More sirens were approaching, coming from all directions, sounding as though they were inside the colts' bedroom. Another truck with a ladder appeared from the same direction, coming to a halt as the first one began to raise its ladder, swinging it toward the third floor and the windows there which were not involved in flame.

Hoses were stretched, unrolled and fitted to the hydrants, after a firepony had opened them with a great theatrical flourish of water to check that they were working. Other fireponies helped distressed occupants off of the fire escape, while another tended to the fire victim removed by the valiant Blaze Beater. Moments later, he emerged again from the fire apartment, with another figure on his back; this one was smaller, much smaller. It was a foal.

Once he reached the ground, he carefully laid the foal down. He exchanged words with some of the fireponies, who passed him on their way up the fire escape with a hose line. Others were scrambling up the truck's ladder, while Pegasi from the second truck were flying up to the higher floors, tools and gear in their hooves. Some went up to the roof, others into the floor above the fire. More vehicles were arriving; an ambulance, a chief's car, another engine, another ladder- and there, swinging into the block, came the majestic Rescue Company Number One, Blaze Beater's own crew.

Dawn and Blaze had seen the rig often enough at firehouse open days to recognise it immediately, and they cheered as it roared down the street and pulled up to a stop. By now the street was alive with fireponies. They seemed to be everywhere, and within three minutes of their arrival, water was spraying out of the burning windows as the hose line was called into action to extinguish the blaze within. Paramedics from the city's emergency ambulance service were treating the two fire victims, loading them carefully onto stretchers.

Whatever the reality, both brothers were convinced. There was no way those two ponies would have had any chance of survival if not for their dad, who so bravely took action without even his helmet. That was when they both made up their minds. That was the day that they both wanted to become fireponies.

Some twenty two years had passed since that fateful day. The city of Manehattan had seen many changes in that time, but in many ways, it remained fundamentally the same. It had grown to a vast, bloated population of nearly ten million creatures, but it still consisted of five boroughs- Manehattan, Hooflyn, The Ponyx, Princess, and distant Stallion Island, connected to the rest of the city only by a magnificent suspension bridge and a couple of ferry services. Equestrian development over the past century had been extremely rapid; whereas a hundred years ago Manehattan would have been served by steam locomotives, airships and paddle steamers, today it played host to sleek electric trains, jet aircraft and vast supertankers. Magic was great, and it was very useful, but technology had stepped in to fill the gaps that it could not. Teleporting services existed, for instance, but they were very expensive- only the most powerful unicorns could transport somepony more than a few hundred feet, and to move three hundred ponies and their baggage halfway around the world? Magic rapidly faded out for that purpose in favour of the fast and efficient airliners. Ponies didn't trot around or take pony-pulled cabs; they drove in cars and trucks and buses.

A hundred years ago, the Manehattan Fire Department relied entirely on pony power. Rickety old wooden ladder trucks and steam-powered pumpers were pulled by fireponies who would sometimes gallop themselves to exhaustion trying to make it to the fire, leaving themselves all but incapable of actually acting once they arrived. Even magical firefighting was in its infancy, because the science behind fires was only very vaguely understood. The intricacies of ventilation, the fire triangle, hydraulics, water flows, pressure, hazardous materials and a hundred other factors were barely on the curriculum for prospective fireponies, if they were taught at all.

The days of wooden hydrants and iron ponies lay well in the past, however, and the department was now widely considered to be the finest in all of the land. There was no doubt that it was the largest, but then it needed to be. Manehattan was a huge city with a massive population, all of whom needed protecting, not just from fire, but from a myriad array of potential dangers which could be unleashed upon them at any time. Day or night, rain or shine, spring, summer, winter or autumn, disaster could strike at any moment, and the MFD needed to be available to respond no matter the circumstances.

The department had a staff of almost twenty thousand, which included fireponies, administrative staff, and paramedics. The city's municipal emergency medical services had been folded into the MFD fifteen years earlier, meaning they were now responsible for providing medical care as well as fire protection. Spread across the city were two hundred engine companies, one hundred and fifty ladder companies, and innumerable special units, all organised into fifty Battalions and fifteen Divisions that split the city geographically. Each borough had three Divisions, and each Division had several Battalions of units assigned to it. Most of the special units, which included the Rescue Companies, one per borough, were assigned to the Special Operations Battalion, or S.O.B. which was officially pronounced as in the word that means to cry, but leading quite naturally to the unofficial motto of Rescue One, painted on the windshield; The Toughest S.O.B.S In Town!

Today was a special day in the MFD. Today was the day when probies, probationary fireponies fresh from the Academy, were assigned to their firehouses. Other fireponies who were moving from one company to another did so on the same day, which was how two brothers found themselves reunited.

Ember Blaze had been a member of the Manehattan Fire Department for seven years, joining straight after college when he was twenty years old. A college degree was a requirement for any firepony who wanted to become an officer, and Blaze had decided to gain a head start by obtaining his degree in Fire Sciences, with a minor in Personnel Management. He had worked his way through a few companies. An engine here, a ladder there, all working to his ultimate goal. He wanted- no, he needed- to join Rescue, and now, today, that was exactly what he was doing.

The firehouse was located in midtown Manehattan, in the borough of the same name, the one that epitomised the city to any outsider or tourist. It housed Rescue Company 1, Engine Company 25, and Battalion Chief 9. A low, squat building some forty years old, the firehouse was quite an attraction for visitors to the city, both because of its proximity to many of the major tourist spots, but also because it housed Rescue 1. The rescue was the oldest rescue company in Equestria, founded some ninety-five years ago by a former Chief of Department after a particularly bad structural collapse where half a dozen victims were left to die in agony in the ruins because nopony had the tools to extricate them. The rescue had been joined by four others over the years, one per borough, and were sometimes described as toolboxes on wheels thanks to the variety of specialised equipment they carried in their boxy structures.

While Blaze was moving to Rescue, his brother, Ember Dawn, was receiving his first assignment as a firepony. Engine 25 would be his home, and he was both excited and, secretly, terrified. There was the potential for physical danger, of course, but more than that, he didn't want to let his father or his brother down. He knew he had to be as strong as them, as brave as them, as resourceful and courageous as them. Their father had retired from the department years ago, as Deputy Chief of Rescue Operations. Ember Blaze had given a fine account of himself thus far in his career, and Dawn wanted so dearly to prove himself in the same way.

His chance had finally arrived. He was in his new firehouse, and when a call came in, he would respond. It was a big, big responsibility, but it was one he had been building toward for the last twenty two years. Unlike Blaze, Dawn had worked a couple of other jobs before joining the department. The family had run into financial trouble for long enough that they couldn't afford to send their second son straight to college, and instead he had to wait. He could have joined the department anyway, so long as he was content to remain a firepony and not an officer, but he wanted more. He wanted Rescue, and that needed a college education as well. Only the best for the Toughest S.O.B.S In Town!

'Everypony gather round!'

Chief Firebrand, a thirty year veteran of the department, called the roll. The dark red earth pony stallion was in charge of the 9th Battalion, a responsibility he shared with two other chief officers on a rotating schedule. Firebrand would be the commanding officer of both Ember Blaze and Ember Dawn, and both ponies joined the cluster of other ponies who gathered round as ordered.

'Alright. Good morning everypony,' Firebrand continued. 'First things first, personnel changes! As you may have noticed, we have two new faces here.' Some of the other fireponies nodded, and Firebrand went on. 'Now there's something peculiar about these two, and some of you might have already clocked it. Now as you all know damn well, every firepony is a brother or sister to every other firepony, but these two, well they're actual honest-to-Celestia biological brothers, and what's more, they are the sons of somepony you older bastards, like me, might remember.' He chuckled, and a couple of others did too. 'They are the sons of Blaze Beater, and if you don't know the pony, you know the name. I have every confidence that both of these ponies will live up to the high ideals and standards set by old Blaze Beater, so please make them both feel right at home here in the 9th Battalion. We have Ember Blaze moving to Rescue 1 from Ladder 110 out in Hooflyn, and the engine is getting their new probie, Ember Dawn, right from the Academy. Welcome aboard to both of you.'

The other ponies slapped the brothers on the back, welcoming them to their new home with hoof bumps and words of encouragement. It was a new start for both of them. They were quickly introduced to the members of their units. The Rescue rolled out with a total of five fireponies and an officer, and the engine had a crew of four fireponies and their officer. There were a lot of names, a lot of faces, for the newcomers to learn, but learn they would. Learning on the job was part of being a firepony.

'Alright everypony, in other news,' Firebrand continued on. 'The MFD half marathon run around Mane Park is now accepting applicants, so get your names on the list while you can. We're being advised yet again to avoid double parking on side streets, as if we don't know that already, and...' he checked his notes. 'And the hydrant on the corner of 40th and 9th Avenue is now back in service. Alright, that's it. Thank you fillies and gentlecolts. Now get to cleaning up those rigs.'

The ponies dispersed to clean up their vehicles as ordered, always an important order of business at the start of a new shift, as mundane as it may seem. Ember Blaze approached his brother with a grin.

'Hey, ED. Finally made it, huh?' He went in for an appreciative hug, getting one in return from his younger sibling. 'Damn, it's good to see you here...it's good to be here, too.'

'Yeah...finally made rescue, huh?' Dawn smiled, more than happy for his brother; ecstatic. 'I'm so proud of you, big brother. I love you.'

'I love you too, bro,' Blaze replied. 'I wondered if this day would ever come, for both of us. I tell you what, I'm so glad it finally did. Now we just gotta wait for you to join me here on rescue, huh?'

Both brothers grinned and shared another embrace, before heading off to their assignments, to greet and help their fellow fireponies. Before they could, however, a two-toned beep blared out across the apparatus floor, followed by a computerised voice.

Beep-boop.

'Engine. Battalion.'

A run. A maiden run for Ember Dawn, the firefighting virgin. The housewatch pony called out more details from his station.

'Engine and Battalion, Box is 1210, address is 156 West 50th Street between 10th and 11th, structural fire! Engine goes first due!'