Every day, firefighters across the country run into burning buildings to save lives. But it’s not every day that a writer gets invited to walk in a firefighter’s shoes — or boots.

So when Capt. Damon Estes of the Columbus Fire and Rescue invited me to run through some training with B Shift, I took him up on the offer. On Tuesday afternoon, I was in the garage of Fire Station 4, ready to suit up and enter a room filled with smoke.

“I’m just going to be honest, this stuff can be stressful,” Estes said. “You’re just going to have to let me know your comfort level. It’s hot, it’s bulky, and you lose all your senses. … That’s one of the things we have to overcome, is dealing with all of that in a fire.”

Estes reassured me I would be completely safe in the pre-prepared scenario. Then, he and Firefighter Rae Vonne Reese helped me to get suited up.

Reese, the only female firefighter on the shift, helped me to put on my boots, pants, suspenders, gloves, jacket, a hood, and a mask, tightening the straps to my face. Finally, she put the bright red helmet, an instant promotion to engineer, on my head like the cherry on top.

Then, Estes helped me to put on a backpack-like air tank called a self-contained breathing apparatus. Altogether, firefighter gear weighs between 30 and 50 pounds, Estes said.

Putting it all on should take a normal firefighter less than two minutes. CFR personnel shoot for a minute and a half. It took me at least 10.

In the drill, I would be following Probationary Firefighter Zach Anderson in a right-hand search pattern. Essentially, we would crawl in a circle around the room, running our right hands on the wall while sweeping our left legs.

“We want to try to get as big as we can, because we want to try to search as much of the room as we can at one time,” Anderson said. “That means this hand is going to stay on the wall. … This leg sweeps, because we’re trying to find bodies.”

After I reassured them I was good to go, and understood how to maintain contact with the exit, Estes opened the door, allowing a wall of white smoke to roll out into the garage. Seconds later, Anderson was crawling in and I was following him.

When the wall of white hit my mask, my first impulse was to back out of the room. But then, Anderson called out to me to keep my right hand on the wall, and I saw a flash of something reflective on the back of his tank and pant leg.

When I look at my recording, it says the whole crawl only took three minutes. But it felt like I was in that room for at least 20. All I could see were corners of chairs and tables and white smoke. All I could hear was my own breathing and Anderson. And as we rounded the third corner, I couldn’t tell anymore which direction we had come in from, forcing me to cling to the wall.

My ears were ringing when I left the room, my face was red and I felt like I had run a marathon. B Shift immediately congratulated me, while I asked if they could help me out of the mask as quickly as possible, and if we could just sit down and talk for a minute as I recovered.

Quickly, the conversation shifted to why B Shift had gotten into firefighting. For Anderson, it was community service and finding a job he loved.

“Firefighting is something I’ve always wanted to do,” Anderson said. “… I moved down here, and I owned a trucking company, but I didn’t really enjoy doing that kind of work. And for me personally, I wanted to find a way I could serve my community.”

Several firefighters voiced similar feelings about community service as a reason to become a firefighter. But Firefighter Josh Westbrook also pointed out to me that firefighting is not always glamorous, like it is on television and that nobody on B Shift is just a firefighter.

Around the room were firefighters who worked cutting lawns, on bouncy houses, on air conditioning units, as carpenters, security guards, maintenance men, mechanics or as personal trainers in their downtime. Otherwise they would be “below the poverty line,” Westbrook said.

“All of us have our own story of why we do what we do, but ultimately, while we all have different tools in our trade, we have one thing in common,” Westbrook said. “Help. We’re here to help.”

Estes also reminded me CFR’s jobs encompass much more than just fires. Estes said this has been reduced by budget cuts, but CFR responds to help citizens with business inspections, search and rescue operations, sonar searches, car accidents and providing other emergency medical services.

Despite budget cuts, second jobs and running into literal fires, several members of B Shift expressed how much trust they put in each other. Estes even compared the shift to blood relatives.

“We work every third day, 24 hours,” Estes said. “Over a 30-year time period, you will spend — if you don’t work any overtime — you will spend 10 years of your life … at a fire station. This does become your second family. There’s just no way around it.”