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THE MAN WHO BURNT ALIVE

With great orange flames exploding all around him, volunteer fireman Kevin Charlsen screamed to be saved. Nearby, another fireman was pleading, " Oh, my God, get us out of here!"
But they were trapped inside an inferno that now raged out of control in the double-storey building. Charlsen realized that no-one could hear them, much less reach them. Flames leapt at him from every side. He could make a dash for it. But in which direction? Through the fogged viseor of his helmet he saw nothing but sheets of orange.
ِAn image came into his mind of the scarred face of a survivor he had known.Realizing that most fire victims die from smoke inhalation rether than burns, he thought, Quickly, Breathe it in, man, breathe it all in. Better to die than look like a monster.
Then his mind flew to his wife,Lynn, and their two sons, Michael, 9, and Matthew, 5. Dear God, how I love them. In that moment he knew he must not Plunge blindly into the blaze or accept a comparatively quick death from the smoke. He must stay where he was and gamble on the hoses reaching him.
Charlsen summoned every scrap of will and lay face down in the furnace of fire. Near the floor, the air was fairly smoke-free.Dammit! I'm going to live.

A Blizzard has been howling all day in stillwater, Minnesota, that friday, January 22, 1982. Charlsen, an athletic man with a neatly trimmed black beard, warmed up a snowmobile and brought it to the front of his garage. As a captian of stillwater's volunteer fire brigade he would need a fast getaway in case of an alarm.
Later that evening the Charlsens were eating supper at a neighbour's when Kevin's bleeper sounded. Within minutes he reached the fire station, pulled long rubbers boots over his jeans and donned a yellow fire jacket and helmet. At 7.18 pm, he jumped on to a fire engine and headed for the fire. Thick smoke was billowing from Brine's Meat Market, a three-storey brick structure on Main Street. To fight it, Stillwater Fire Chief David Chial had called in assistance from the neighbouring towns of Lake Elmo, Bayport and Mahtomedi.
For two hours, 40 fire fighters poured torrents of water into the blaze. After it had been subdued, Charlsen entered an adjoining clothing shop, the Country Tailor. His spotlight showed wispy black smoke. There is a fire inside somewhere, he thought, and it's starving for oxygen.
On instructions from Chail, he got a heavy circular saw from the fire engine and lugged it to the roof of the shoop. It was standard procedure to ventilate a fire, to cut an escape hole for the smoke, heat and gases. Two Mahtomedi firemen volunteered to help Charlsen.
Smoke was streaming from the eaves of the building now. As he sawed at the roof Charlsen gasped for air. He was not wearing a mask as were the other to. " Let's take two or three tries at this," he said. "Then I must go. I can't breathe."
At 9.47pm the entire roof suddenly gave way under Charlsen's feet and he fell into a pit of fire with tne other two men. I'm a goner. At 34, I'm a goner!
Charlsen landed on his feet, debris raining about him. But where was the fire ? The collapse of the snow-covered roof must have smothered it. Hope sprang inside him. Maybe I can get out of here.
Then the cloud of smoke around Charlsen burst with a whoosh into flames that swept the shop and towered 30 metres into the night.
Firmen on top of the adjacent hardware shop reeled back in horror. One barked into his radio, "Men down through the roof." The grim news spread by shouted word of mouth. In the confusion, many thought the three men had plummeted into the centre of the 34-metre-long building.
Actually, they had fallen to a mezzanine floor at the back. There Mahtomedi fireman Jamie Raeburn died instantly when a huge air conditioner fell on him. The other Mahtomedi fireman, Robert Hays, ran through the fire to a corner from which there was no escape and was overcome by smoke.
Near panic and breathing jerkily. Charlsen fought to control his shaking body. Face down, he forced himself to breathe the better air below the smoke line in short, regular gasps. His gloved hands felt snow spilt from the roof, and he gathered it around his head as protection
If he could avoid inhaling too much smoke, he might make it. No part of his flesh was exposed directly to the scorching heat. His coat was made of a flame-resistant synthetic and his helmet's composite material could withstand temperatures up to 650 degrees for short periods.
He licked at the fast-melting snow. A dribble of water, surely from a hose aimed from above, hit his coat. If those guys can nock down the fire quickly.....
Then a heavy piece of debris fell, pinioning Charlsen's right ankle and setting his boot on fire . White-hot needles of pain pulsated over him. A glance through his helmet visor showed orange flames everywhere. The heat licking at his coat was turning his sweat to steam. The skin was boiling off him. Please, God, I can't take any more. Let me pass out.
Despite occasional splashes of water over him, his hopes ebbed. He was assailed by guilt. Always busy with his insurance agency or at the fire station, he hadn't spent enough time with his wife and boys. His heart webt out to his family. I hope you know how much I love you.

At 10.15pm, Lynn Charlsen telephoned her father-in-law, Dean to get information on the fire. Dean was monitoring his police and fire scanner when she phoned. Together they heard voices shouting, "There's been a Cave in. Men down through the roof."
For the first time in the seven years her husband has been a fire fighter, Lynn was afraid. She phoned the fire station and was told that the identity of the men was not yet known. It was a wellmeant untruth. Replacing the phone, she thought, it's Kevin. I know it.
The men fighting the fire could scarcely believe how little effect their hoses were having. Two hoses poured water from an adjoining roof, two more were at the back doors, another thundered through the front entrance, and a deluge gun-ejecting 4000 litres a minute -was dumping water on the fire from the fire engine in front of the shop.
Because of the misunderstanding about exactly where the men had fallen, the deluge was played the length of the building. But Bernie Peltier, who controlled a hose at the back of the building, thought the men must be the mezzanine floor. He concentrated his stream there.
More than an hour had passed since Peltier heard the men inside. His brain told him that no-one could live in that holocaust, but his heart commanded him not to give up. He knew Kevin Charlsen was in there somewhere and was a resourceful man.
In fact, Charlsen was little more than six metres from his friend, and the main reason he was still alive was that water from Peltier's hose, and one on the opposite side of the building, kept the floor under his body cool enough to prevent combustion. There was no relief, however, from the flaming debris above and on either side of him.
Burning, molten tar from the broken roof had eaten through the flesh of his right foot and ankle, and was smouldering into the bone. His entire back and tha backs of both legs were steamed raw. The fabric of his coat was disintegrating, and fire was creeping in under his helmet's neck flap.
The rim of one ear was scorched black, but Charlsen did not feel it. Shock had set in. He had at last reached a numbing threshold of pain that suspended all sense of time and drove from his mind the details of his cremation.
Deputy sheriff Rob Daniels, who had been training his hose on the firey wreckage in the mezzanine floor from the hardware shop roof, saw the fire finally subsiding in some areas. A flare-up in the centre of the darkening void below caught his eye. He hit it with a full stream.
The icy water caught Charlsen at the waist and sluised over him. His pain-numbed body jumped with the shock of it. I'm drowning! He lifted his head and saw that the fire was out. Wow, that didn't take long-15,20 minutes?
As he pushed himself to his knees, a violent shuddering took hold of his body. This was crazy. Now he was in danger of freezing to death. "Help!" he shouted. "Get me out of here."
Daniels peered incredulously into the gutted, smoking shop and shouted, "Hey, somebody's alive!" Although he had known Charlsen for years he didn't recognize the strained voice. "Hang on, buddy, we'll get you out," he called.
At 11.15 Charlsen was carried from the building. He had been burning alive for an hour and 28 minutes.
Yet he was rational, and recounted his ordeal in the emergency ward of the hospital, where doctors cut away his clothing. Aghast at his injuries, they ordered his immediate transfer to the burns unit at the St Paul-Ramsey Medical Centre. It was then, during the 40 kilometre drive, that Charlsen screamed for morphine.
Doctors at the burns unit found that nearly a third of Charlsen's body was burnt to the second or third degree.All of February and most of March merged into a midnight of agony for Charlsen. Dead skin was washed away with bleach baths. Skin from the front parts of his body was grafted on to the charred back areas, and a muscle from under his arm was implanted in the right foot and ankle.
When Lynn drove Kevin home on March 31, Stillwater's fire engine and police cars lay in wait off the highway. With sirens blaring, they fell in ahead fo and behind the Charlsens' car for a triumphant parade into town. Tears streamed down Kevin's face, and his lips framed a quiet Thank you, Lord.
Eight months later, his right foot 50 per cent recovered, Kevin Charlsen was back fighting fires.

This story was written by Peter Michelmore