Huffington Magazine Issue 46 | Page 54

KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES PLAYING WITH FIRE area hospitals for smoke inhalation and other respiratory and eye problems. Five years earlier, a fire had destroyed a branch of the same company in Greenville, Texas, prompting the evacuation of an elementary school. Stephen Cook, the chief training HUFFINGTON 04.28.13 officer at a firefighter training facility at McLennan Community College in nearby Waco, said that first responders taking on scenarios like the fires in Bryan and in West confront what seem like impossible choices: With inadequate information and variables such as wind and air temperature potentially rendering their decisions wrong, they are forced to make quick determinations about whether to try Bill Warren, a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4819, lowers a U.S. flag to half-staff in memory of victims of the West Fertilizer Company explosion, which left 14 dead.