Red devils and inner demons

LAWRENCE SCANLAN

BURNING DOWN THE HOUSEFighting Fires and Losing MyselfBy Russell WangerskyThomas Allen, 271 pages, $32.95I now know that "a thin, sugary smell reminiscent of caramel" may sometimes presage a hay fire. That the heavy protein foam used by firefighters smells "for all the world like hot dogs." That "10-45" on a police scanner is code for the discovery of a dead body and "Code-4 medical" is shorthand for a patient just moments away from perishing. That in a house fire, paint blisters fast and then "the bubbles crust over black" before splitting. I now know that whether you live or die in a gas explosion sometimes comes down to "bare-naked chance": whether you happen to be inhaling or exhaling at the moment of "whoof."