Fire Alarm

Tonight I had a business dinner at an upscale restaurant downtown. It was me, a company representative from a wholesale insurance broker, and four guys from my office.

One of my coworkers that attended this dinner is a volunteer firefighter for his community, and has been for many years. Fire safety is his passion. Now, you have to understand, when you get a bunch of property & casualty insurance professionals together, safety and risk are topics that come up quite a bit. Add to that mix a fire safety fanatic and you can guarantee that fire codes and similar discussions are pretty prevalent in the discussion. We joked about how my co-worker (the fire guy) had checked all the exits of the restaurant for blockages within minutes of entering.

So, we are enjoying dinner, telling stories, etc. Fire and fire-related topics just keep coming up, like the time one of my colleagues and the president of our company were visiting a client, and a nearby fireworks shop started ablaze, with fireworks shooting off inside. Or the time one of them was visiting some establishment and told the owner they might want to call the fire department; the owner questioned why, and he responded, "because your employees are wheeling all your equipment out of that building that's on fire."

At some point, my firefighting colleague is mentioning to us that he's found several makeshift meth labs in the woods when he's hunting, and how often people will use their vehicles for meth labs, and what a fire hazard disaster that often turns into. And as he's talking, I happen to glance out the window that is directly behind him and see pillars of smoke billowing outside. I squint a little, try to see what's going on, and see flames licking up. I crane my neck around a little, and what do you know, there is a car on fire right outside the restaurant.

So I interrupt and say, "Um.... guys? That car is on fire...." In a split second, fire-fighter guy has pushed out his chair, stood up and taken a sweeping glance around the room (he later told us he was looking for any visible fire extinguishers), and made a beeline towards the kitchen where he emerged seconds later with the kitchen fire extinguisher (pretty heavy duty, since it often deals with grease fires). He's out the door and saves the day, putting the car fire out in minutes. About seven minutes later the fire truck shows up; by this time, our trusty firefighter has already re-entered the restaurant, returned the fire extinguisher to its rightful place in the kitchen, washed himself up in the bathroom, and is back in his seat enjoying his halibut.

He was practically glowing from every pore after this incident. That guy loves fighting fires.

(As a side note, the company rep we were eating dinner with has a side job of maintaining a blog about management liability, executive protection issues, and the like. He and Firefighter Dude were discussing their various "passions", to which Firefighter responded, "Yours is way more dangerous than mine. Sure, I might go into a burning building, but if I had to write about directors and officers liability on a regular basis, I'd probably end up on a killing spree.")

Clearly, the restaurant ordeal was not a life-threatening or terribly serious situation. But thanks to all those firefighters out there for doing a job that not many people have the guts to take on. The same goes for D&O bloggers.