Expert Interviews: John Cratty, Former Monmouth Fire Chief

Following the interview with our local Police Chief, I next went to the fire department. I use a lot of book research in my mysteries, but talking with experts is really helpful in getting the details right.

I interviewed Chief John Cratty in 2011 when he was the Fire Chief of our little town of 10,000. His work in fire departments encompasses 33 years. Before coming to Monmouth, he began his career in my home town. There, in Galesburg, Illinois, Chief Cratty worked for 31 years as a firefighter, captain, assistant chief, and fire chief (the latter from 1994-2009.) In 2010, he was named Fire Chief in Monmouth, and he held that post for two years before he went on to the position of City Administrator. It's obvious that public service is in his blood.

I was particularly interested in the fact that Chief Cratty had been an investigator with the fire departments because information about why fires start and how they spread was central to writing my mystery, Three May Keep a Secret, coming out in November, 2014.

Besides asking Chief Cratty for specific information, I also had him read a description in my mystery and tell me if it sounded accurate.

We met at the north fire station in town, and I was able to see the forty pounds of equipment the firefighters wear, and the facilities and trucks they use.

I asked Chief Cratty about three areas that were crucial to getting the facts right in my novel: (a) What happens when small towns like Monmouth have house fires in the country? (b) How would such a fire-fighting scene look? (c) What are some of the basics of fire investigation?

He explained that small fire departments cooperate when a fire breaks out in the

country on a farm or in a family home. The various departments have mutual aid agreements and the dispatcher who receives the call about a fire will know what district the fire is in and "drop" the alarm. Volunteer firemen and off-duty firemen have cell phones that get automatic texts or audio pagers that alert them about such a fire. Each department responds to the location, but the first department that arrives takes charge. Then the Chief of that department can continue being in command or he can let the Chief whose jurisdiction the fire is in take charge. A "box card" is also available for the fire location so the Chief can check what equipment is coming and what is available. The various departments have quarterly meetings to share training and update information.

Because my mystery takes place in the small town of Endurance, I needed to know how this works. In my mystery, a fire breaks out in a home a few miles from town. TJ Sweeney, police detective, goes to the fire, and I needed to be able to describe what she saw when she arrives that night.

Chief Cratty told me that, when going to a fire, life safety is the number one concern. Their second concern is saving

property. They set up the trucks with the engines going, water hoses on the fire. Then the firemen go inside, trying to "push" the fire out. Pushing the fire includes cooling it with water while trying to drive the fire out openings like doors and windows from the inside of the house. This makes more sense than pushing the fire from outside the house to other areas of the house that are not on fire. If it's a highly offensive fire, they try to save property. If it is a defensive fire they try to contain it from other "exposures" (buildings.)

He gave the example that if they get to a fire and see flames in the first floor rooms, and the front and side windows are in flames, two people can go in with one hose and push 150-200 gallons of water per minute on the fire. They work in teams and the Chief keeps track of who is where and which team is at which location. Sometimes they need to call the gas company if they need to disconnect gas, and then they can lose minutes of time waiting for that disconnection.

The individual firefighters' masks have transmitters so they have radio

communication to the command center on one channel (dispatch frequency) and communication to the other men on another channel (fire ground frequency.) In the end, the Chief has to decide whether to "salvage" (use tarps to cover furniture and keep out water damage), or "overhaul" (cut into the walls and ceilings to check the electrical switches and see if there is smoldering.)

Once the fire is contained and secondary flare-ups are put out, an investigation begins to determine the origin and cause of the fire. This can take days or weeks. The Monmouth Fire department can pinpoint

the origin. If there is a fatality, they notify the local and state police and the state fire marshal's office. In all fires, the MFD does the initial investigation and then shares the information with the insurance company. As far as the cause, they rule out many potential causes first. Lightning? Was the electricity off or on? Propane tanks? candles? Cigarette smoking? The origin is often easy to spot because of a vee ("V") pattern, sometimes on wood trim. The deepest char has burned the longest, and so that may be the start of the fire.

I asked specifically about arson. Chief Cratty said that this kind of fire is usually very aggressive, and if it has multiple spots of origin, it is often from a gasoline pour. A reverse pour means the arsonist puts gasoline in various spots and lights one or more, hoping all will catch fire eventually. The heat from the fire can cause carpet fibers to melt, and if some of the spots with fuel don't ignite it leaves a melted fiber pattern on the spot, and the odor of gasoline is still present for sampling.

All of this information was important to me because fire is a huge ingredient in my novel. Fire is a key part of both character development and the plot. Before speaking to Chief Cratty, I had done quite a bit of book research on fires and arson, but I didn't know exactly how small town fire stations operated. Former Chief Cratty was an excellent source of information to make sure my novel's fire details were accurate.

Humpty Dumpty Revisited With a New Ending

        It has been an interesting experience to have a bone-breaking accident during my senior citizen age of 65. My blog will be on "hold" for a few days while I have surgery to take out the metal that was originally put in to help my bones heal. I must say, however, that I have truly learned the meaning of the word "accident" after this little affair; I've had a first-hand experience with multiple health insurance companies; and I've been reminded of why I live in a small town of 10,000 in a part of America where people are genuine.


        Last August I took a nasty fall on a poorly maintained piece of sidewalk where I worked. I broke my left elbow, right wrist, and nose all in a few seconds. I was walking down the sidewalk to my car carrying several framed photographs in the crook of my left arm. My right arm swung at my side and my purse hung from my right shoulder. I glanced up briefly to see where I had parked my car and that's all she wrote. The toe of my foot caught in a spot where the slabs of concrete didn't quite meet. [At this point I will apologize to all who inquired about my poor balance. True, I fell, but it wasn't my balance that caused it. However, I didn't need to give you a prickly reply.]

        Fortunately, my cell phone fell out of my purse onto the sidewalk and, while I could see my wrist was ballooning up, I managed to dial 911.Two of my former students came with the fire engine and an ambulance [talk about embarrassing], and managed to cart me off to the hospital fifteen minutes away. Of course, the first problem was remembering which hospital my insurance would cover since the insurance had recently changed. That resolved, I got excellent care at the emergency room. Then the question arose about the only surgeon on call: would he be covered by my insurance? As it happened, he would be. [An aside about surgeons: I believe the more unique your problem--such as my elbow--the more intrigued your surgeon will be. I had multiple areas to work on. Fantastic!]
       
        Like an old used car, I had to wait three days in the hospital for parts before they could repair me. But after the surgery, as I healed, I had occupational therapy which helped me relearn how to feed myself, open door knobs, and put on my seat belt.

        
        In the meantime, the insurance company I had had was denying all claims, the insurance company I was now with was denying all claims, and eventually it was correctly deemed a worker's comp accident. I now have three huge files of correspondence from these people. Then when I added Medicare--two months after my fall--they sent me letters double checking that they hadn't paid anything for which they were not responsible. I often ask myself how folks older than I manage to keep all these inquiries straight.
        
        While I am the bionic woman at the moment, I soon will not be. The screws in my elbow are fully visible and my wrist could use more range of motion. So my bionic parts are now going to exit. They were only necessary to heal the bones and now their continued presence is uncomfortable.


        The bottom line of this whole ugly episode that I will soon put behind me, is that it has reminded me of what a blessing it is to live in a small town where word, especially bad news, travels fast. I have had no end of help from friends, acquaintances, and well-wishers. They fed me, stayed with me, drove me to doctor's appointments, and cheered me up.  I am truly blessed and that is one of the reasons I write about life in a small town in the middle of America. While this life may lack a bit in privacy, it sure makes up for that when you need friends.

A Sense of Place

I must admit I am a huge fan of the television series Friday Night Lights whose 63 episodes aired from 2006-2011.  It told the story of a high school football team—the Panthers—in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas.  Running for six seasons, FNL centered around a high school coach, Eric Taylor, his wife, Tami, and a group of football players whose various talents, decisions, and circumstances led them to a wider life beyond Dillon or a narrower life staying in the small town.  When it ended with the wonderful soundtrack by Delta Spirit called “Devil Knows You’re Dead,” I felt like I had lost a group of friends.  Why?  I am not drawn to football games or high school immaturity these days. 

After much thought, I believe the town, its culture and expectations, and the human relationships in FNL reminded me of “a sense of place.”  I understood and felt comfortable in that small town and with its characters—some with a huge sense of decency and selflessness, and others guided by narcissism and selfishness. It felt like a familiar place. 

A good book is like that too.  I reach the last page and hate to leave that place and time.

For Robert Frost a sense of place was New England with its birches, snow, pastures, and streams.  For William Faulkner, as well as Eudora Welty, it was the South with its brooding knowledge of the past.  John Steinbeck’s sense of place was the California arroyos and the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression.  For Nathanial Hawthorne the Salem area with its witches and dark forests provided a setting and sense of the familiar.

Sometimes I wonder if we haven’t lost—in this amazingly interconnected and digital world—a sense of place.  Some might call it a sense of “home.” 

I was reminded of that this morning as I read the local newspapers back in Illinois.  Often their stories remind me of how wonderful it is to be surrounded by the familiar.  A farmer is killed in a terrible accident and his neighbors organize to help bring in the crops.  Recognized names and places, local politics, even obituaries of familiar family names form an unconscious framework for my thoughts.  My reactions to stories are the product of forty-four years in the same area among familiar people, names, and events.

My own children grew up in a small Illinois town.  They have memories of their neighborhood with “back door neighbors,” pick up baseball games in the yard, walking to and from school, and weekend evenings at the roller rink.  When one of them drove his hot wheels off the neighbor’s porch thinking he was one of the Dukes of Hazzard, all the doors opened and everyone rushed to see what the noise was after he hit the sidewalk.  When another one rode her tricycle down the middle of the main street to go shopping downtown at age four, a local cab driver brought her back unharmed—fortunately it was to the next door neighbor’s house since I would have died of embarrassment at her escape.  Small towns. 

Recently I had a terrible accident in the small town I call home.  What was amazing was that I knew the firemen that came to my rescue, many of the nurses and doctors that cared for me in two different hospitals, and the friends who came to my home afterwards.  People provided food, rides to doctors' appointments, and simple company while I was healing. 

In my winter home I share the freeways with thousands of cars, stand in lines with total strangers, and live in a neighborhood with people I never see. 

A sense of place.  There is something to be said for that.

Murder in a Small Town

          I have lived in a small town [population 9,900] for a little over forty years.  I’m used to people saying, “Oh, you’re from Illinois?  What part of Chicago?”  Despite this geographical impairment in peoples’ minds, a small, downstate town makes a great setting for a cozy mystery. Cozies are extremely popular and entire websites are dedicated to such books, often created in a series.  The small town atmosphere is perfect for the backdrop of a story where an amateur sleuth—usually a woman—is drawn into a murder.  Small towns have unique characteristics that add to the plot and atmosphere of such a genre.  Their geographical landmarks and histories are only two of these characteristics.

          Currently I’m working on a mystery and drawing on my experience of living in a small town.  Here’s an example:  Our small town, like many tiny places, has a square in the center with two main streets bisecting it.  One, of course, is Main Street and the other is Broadway.   Seriously, since I have lived in this town I’ve become quite aware that no one knows clearly how to maneuver through this square.  And it isn’t really a square—it’s a circle with two lanes.  So here is the way I used our square/circle in describing my imaginary town of Endurance:

The center of town with surrounding businesses and shops, the Square was more a circle than a square and no one knew exactly how to drive around it, so defensive driving was the local custom.  This was particularly true since Danny Walker, after a few beers at Patsy’s Pub, decided to cruise the square multiple times in the wrong direction, taking out a fire hydrant and two signs for the Little People’s Daycare Center and Bert’s Collision Shop (‘You Scratch It, We Patch It.’)  The only thing he appeared to have missed was the neon ‘Open’ sign for the Homestretch Funeral Home, but the hazy memory of seeing it go past several times probably contributed to his contrition once he sobered up.

          And Danny was apprehended quite quickly because his neighbors saw the crime and reported it, and he was a known quantity at the small town police department.  Believe me, this isn’t Los Angeles or New York.

          My mystery has a female sleuth who is drawn reluctantly into a murder.  She is not a detective or a crime solver by occupation; sometimes she is a book store owner, a teacher, a knitting club member, or a minister.  In my book, the main character is a high school teacher who has recently retired and  she is drawn into the first murder when she takes over the part-time newspaper job of a former colleague who is the victim of the murder.  She has friends and former students who help her in various situations as she is slowly pulled into a darker part of the town that she never knew existed.

          Lurking beneath the surface are old injuries, past grudges and grievances, and—of course—they often lead to murders most foul.