He Solved the Case

by Jack Horton

I was regional safety officer in the Forest Service’s Regional Office in San Francisco during the late 60’s and early 70’s.  One morning, I was advised by one of our special agents (criminal investigators) that an Angeles National Forest patrol pumper responding to a fire had collided with an Oldsmobile in a Pasadena intersection. Both vehicles were totaled. The agent and I were dispatched to investigate the accident. We completed the investigation the next day. However, we could not get a flight back to San Francisco that night. We checked into a motel near Los Angeles International Airport, then headed out to find a restaurant. We settled on a slightly upscale place on Sepulveda Boulevard in Segundo; paid for the meal, then stood in line and watched them cook it.

I ordered my hamburger and the agent ordered his steak. He told the cook that he wanted his steak well done and that if it wasn’t well done, he wouldn’t eat it. While our meals were being cooked, the cook put some more meat on the grill. Some grease flared up and ignited a stack of paper napkins next to the grill. In trying to beat out the fire, the cook managed to scatter the burning napkins onto the grill and things went downhill from there. The grill erupted in fire and the fire quickly spread up into the hood, then into the flue. A passerby came running into the restaurant and yelled that fire was coming out the roof. One of the cooks discharged a CO2 fire extinguisher onto the grill and into the hood, but the fire continued to burn. Smoke began banking down from the ceiling and customers and restaurant employees alike, began evacuating.

Our investigator had been watching this unexpected event with great concern. Then he said to the cashier, “I wanted my steak well done, but I didn’t want it that well done (it was cinders). Now someone has sprayed that white s___ all over it. I want my money back.” Would you believe that in the midst of all that confusion, our man did get his money back just before the cashier fled the building. I accepted my financial loss and the investigator and I bailed out of the building to the parking lot.

As we were getting into our rental car to go find another restaurant, the local firefighters showed up with two engines and a ladder truck. One engine laid parallel two and one-half inch hose lines across the parking lot driveway, thus blocking us in. The investigator began grumbling about how hungry he was and how unhappy he was that our car was bottled up in the parking lot. I tuned to him and said, “Aw, stop griping. This is probably the only fire case you’ve ever solved.” An icy silence engulfed me.

Printed in Forest Service Humor edited by Gilbert W Davies and Florice M. Frank ©1996