Chapter 26

Chapter 026: Limit (5)

A chill ran down Hee-soo's spine.

With the old firefighting suit, he could estimate the heat and danger of the scene from the heat that slipped through the gaps.

But the new suit blocked heat so well that he hadn't even realized the temperature outside had risen this high.

Hee-soo shook his head.

I really need to add a temperature warning alarm.

First, the four-person rescue team led by Hee-soo brought the three workers trapped inside the elevator out through the emergency exit on the first floor.

Seeing Hee-soo come out safely, the two reporters finally relaxed.

Photographer Jang couldn't hide his amazement at Hee-soo's performance.

"Wow. At this point, he's basically just a real firefighter."

"Exactly. He's incredible. He really looks like a hero."

"A chaebol hero, huh? He's basically Iron Man."

"Iron Man..."

Yoon-hee shook her head.

"I understand him even less now."

"Why is someone like him doing this?"

The fire door leading to the main fire on the third floor had not opened yet, so the emergency stairwell was still usable.

The temperature there remained around three hundred degrees Celsius, which was barely within the range that firefighters' protective suits could endure.

Thanks to that, the suppression team had already secured the emergency stairwell.

[3 Rescues Successful]

The moment Hee-soo saw the message appear on his face-mask display, he celebrated internally.

Looks like it counted because I took the leading role in the rescue.

The real problem was the fifth floor.

Originally, five firefighters had been there.

One had come down to the fourth floor, leaving five people there again after reinforcements arrived.

However, there were ten victims on the fifth floor.

Captain Gu immediately spoke through the radio.

"Hey. Stop messing around and get up here."

"Yes. We'll replace our oxygen tanks and come right up."

"Bring ours too."

"Understood."

The moment he finished speaking, flames suddenly burst out from the emergency exit.

"What the hell?"

"The fire door leading from the third floor into the emergency stairwell has been damaged!"

"The fire is spreading into the stairwell!"

Hee-soo shook his head.

"We need to move quickly."

The suppression firefighters who had entered the building came rushing back out to avoid the flames.

The deputy captain also began hurrying.

"Ugh. We'd better get upstairs before the route gets blocked."

The members of Rescue Team 3 replaced their personal oxygen tanks and carried one additional tank each.

Four people had come down, so technically each person only needed to carry one.

The deputy captain picked up two and headed upstairs.

Even though the flames churned like the inside of a furnace, Hee-soo and the other three firefighters walked into them as though it were nothing.

The situation was so urgent that Yoon-hee could only see Hee-soo from far away during the brief moment he came back outside.

After seeing Dobong Rescue Team enter, Gangbuk Rescue Team tried to follow them.

However, they were forced to turn back almost immediately after reaching the entrance.

Their equipment simply couldn't endure flames that looked like hell itself.

Gangbuk Rescue Team couldn't understand what they had just witnessed.

"What the hell is that?"

"How did those guys go inside there?"

Yoon-hee approached the captain of Gangbuk Rescue Team, who had been forced to retreat.

"Why can't you go inside?"

"Who are you?"

"Ah. I'm Jo Yoon-hee from Samhan Ilbo."

"I'm reporting from the scene."

"How are we supposed to enter that?"

"The temperature in there looks close to one thousand degrees."

"A firefighting suit can withstand around three hundred degrees at most."

"And even that means you're risking your life."

He looked back toward the entrance.

"More importantly, what the hell are those guys wearing?"

"They walked in there like they were entering their own living room."

"What?"

"You're saying it's almost one thousand degrees in there?"

"That's right."

"The fire on the third floor is a metal fire."

"The heat pouring out through the entrance is incredible."

"And Dobong Rescue Team just went inside?"

"Exactly."

"Are they using different equipment from us?"

The moment the chief of Dobong Fire Station heard that Rescue Team 3 had entered again, he jumped out of his seat.

"What?"

"They went back in?"

"Why would they go back inside?"

"We were told everyone had already been rescued and there was nobody left!"

He tried contacting Rescue Team 3 through the radio, but communication with the team inside was difficult.

Meanwhile, a Level 1 response had been declared.

Support arrived from Nowon, Jungnang, and even Uijeongbu Fire Stations.

Twenty pump trucks and water tankers poured out massive streams of water like waterfalls.

Even so, the metal fire showed almost no sign of weakening.

The larger problem was that the fire had already spread beyond the third floor.

It had reached the first, second, and fourth floors as well.

Fortunately, Rescue Team 3 had closed the fire door leading to the third floor while climbing upward.

The temperature inside the emergency stairwell dropped rapidly, allowing the suppression team to resume firefighting operations.

The problem was the personnel who had already entered the fifth floor.

The chief of Dobong Fire Station was beside himself with worry.

"Can't we contact Rescue Team 3?"

"Shouldn't everyone be coming out?"

"Suppression team, open a route immediately!"

Captain Gu arrived on the fifth floor and gave an order to Rescue Team 3.

"We're taking the victims down to the first floor."

Hee-soo immediately opposed him.

"That won't work."

"Why?"

"The temperature in the emergency stairwell is already too high."

"We don't know when the third-floor door will fail again."

"It was already extremely hot when we came up."

"How hot?"

"When we came through, the third-floor stairwell was around eight hundred degrees because the door had opened."

"We closed the door, but I doubt the temperature has dropped enough for ordinary people to pass through yet."

"Eight hundred degrees?"

"Yes."

"And by the time we take the victims down, there's a very high chance the fire door blocking the third floor will be completely destroyed."

Only then did the deputy captain and Jae-sik seem to understand.

"No wonder."

"It did feel a little hotter."

"It wasn't that bad when we were on the third floor..."

A bad possibility suddenly occurred to Captain Gu.

"Hmm."

"Then the other rescue teams may have arrived but can't enter?"

"That's probably what's happening."

"If the suppression teams can't open a route, they won't be able to get inside."

There was no time to think for long.

"The fire will reach the fifth floor soon."

"Let's use the emergency stairs and head to the roof."

"Good."

"We need to move through the emergency stairwell as quickly as possible."

"Is the roof door open?"

"Hmm."

"I didn't check."

"Then that's what we need to confirm first."

The deputy captain stepped forward.

"I'll go check."

He briefly opened the door leading into the emergency stairwell.

The deputy captain and the firefighter holding the door both flinched.

"Ugh!"

The temperature in the fifth-floor stairwell had already exceeded five hundred degrees.

Just as he was about to go out, an outside radio transmission came through.

"Hey!"

"Are all of you still alive in there?"

It was the urgent voice of the chief of Dobong Fire Station.

"Yes. Everyone is safe."

"The fire has spread from the first through the fourth floors."

"A Level 2 response has been declared."

"We've started spraying water toward the roof to support your escape."

"From above, we confirmed that the roof door is open."

"Coming down is impossible."

"Everyone evacuate to the roof."

"Understood."

"We'll evacuate to the tenth floor with ten victims."

"Ten victims?!"

The answer was completely unexpected.

"You mean you found more victims?"

"Weren't you aware there were victims inside?"

"We were told there were only two people left in the building!"

"What are you talking about?"

"We found ten disabled workers who had been sheltering in the restroom and the office."

"We're taking them up now."

The command post immediately became noisy.

"What does that mean?"

"Why wasn't the number of people inside properly confirmed?"

"You can investigate that later."

"We'll take the victims to the roof now."

"Can the disabled victims walk?"

"No."

"Most of them have difficulty walking, so we'll carry them."

The facility was a social enterprise run with support from the district office.

It employed people with disabilities to do manual assembly work.

Most of the workers depended on wheelchairs to move around.

The command staff sounded deeply shaken.

"Understood."

"We're spraying water toward the roof right now."

"Evacuate there and wait for further instructions."

"Understood."

"We're heading up."

Captain Gu spoke to the team.

"The roof door is open."

"We've been ordered to evacuate the victims there."

"Understood."

"But it sounds like they didn't know these victims were inside."

"Seems that way."

Hee-soo didn't say anything, but he was just as dumbfounded.

Fortunately, the disabled victims remained calm after seeing the firefighters.

They didn't seem especially panicked.

If anything, they seemed more apologetic that the firefighters had to carry them.

"If only we could walk..."

"You wouldn't have to work this hard."

"I'm sorry."

Hee-soo answered bluntly.

"Don't talk."

"Press the wet towel tightly over your mouth and nose and breathe through it."

"If you inhale hot air, your lungs can literally cook."

Because they couldn't use their legs, most of the victims weighed less than Hee-soo had expected.

Around sixty kilograms each, maybe.

Carrying two people wasn't easy.

But it wasn't impossible.

For Hee-soo, who regularly trained with heavy weights, it was something he could manage.

And unlike the terrified children from the previous fire, these victims were calm and cooperative.

Hee-soo looked at Captain Gu.

"I'll carry two."

"Captain, you carry two as well."

"You?"

"Yes."

"That's the only way we can get all ten people to the roof."

"We won't be able to come back down."

"That's true."

After carefully wrapping the victims in fireproof blankets, Hee-soo and Captain Gu used the other team members' help to place two victims each across their backs.

Then they headed toward the roof.

From the fifth floor to the roof above the seventh floor, they had to climb roughly two and a half floors of stairs.

The fifth-floor stairwell temperature kept rising.

It was approaching six hundred degrees.

The fireproof blankets also worked as heat shields.

Even so, the temperature inside them reached around sixty degrees.

That was still difficult for a person to endure for very long.

Hee-soo used every bit of strength in his body as he carried two people weighing roughly sixty kilograms each, around one hundred and twenty kilograms in total, up the stairs.

The disabled victims clung tightly to Hee-soo and Captain Gu so they wouldn't make the climb harder than necessary.

This is light.

Compared to the weight of two lives, this is nothing.

Hee-soo practically hypnotized himself as he forced every muscle in his body to keep climbing.

Lifting weights and carrying human beings were fundamentally different.

But Hee-soo felt a level of strength rising from inside his body that was even greater than he expected.

And Hee-soo wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Every member of Rescue Team 3 carrying a victim up the stairs felt the same.

They passed the sixth-floor landing.

Only one more floor remained.

Then something caught everyone's attention.

Fuel containers.

Not one or two.

There looked to be around thirty twenty-liter plastic containers sitting in the stairwell between the seventh floor and the roof.

They appeared to contain kerosene for heating.

The temperature near the seventh-floor stairwell had already risen rapidly to around three hundred degrees.

Hee-soo immediately reported the situation.

"There are around thirty fuel containers abandoned in the stairwell leading from the seventh floor to the roof."

"They appear to be filled with kerosene."

"Their temperature is continuing to rise, and the containers are swelling."

For a moment, there was no response through the radio at all.

Captain Gu was the first to react.

His breathing was rough because he was carrying two people.

"What the hell?"

"Why is something like that here?"

Hee-soo's HUD showed the temperature of the fuel containers at around one hundred and twenty degrees.

The same information appeared on the displays of the other team members.

"Are those really filled with kerosene?"

"I wish it were just water."

"No time!"

"Move!"