The truth is, even as Iwami and Battalion Chief Peter Gaskell relax in the kitchen of the Waikiki Fire Station on a humid Sunday night, the infinite independent variables of an unpredictable world are bumping, crashing, splashing, choking and igniting outside their spotless jalousies.

In the no-time-at-all it would take for them to mobilize, Iwami and the dozen men of the Waikiki station's second watch could be battling a high-rise fire, resuscitating a heart-attack victim, fishing an injured night surfer from the ocean, or prying a family of tourists from a smashed rental car.

As it is, Iwami is sitting in the kitchen cradling his bowl of reheated Portuguese bean soup and watching the evening news.

Firefighter Ivan Kaneshiro checks the blood pressure of Parviz Khamjani, who walked into the Waikiki Fire Station to get the test, offered at many stations. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

The television offers its own take, of course. A commercial for the recently released "Ladder 49" lights the screen with fiery explosions, a warehouse consumed in flames, dramatic close-ups of resolute faces, fleeting images of fire-station prankery.

Several of the men at the station already have seen the film at an advance screening. Hollywood hyperbole notwithstanding, the consensus among the genuine articles is that the film nicks the truth more often than not.

"It's probably the most realistic (movie about firefighters) that I've seen," says Damien Hardy, the former University of Hawai'i volleyball standout who now works on Ladder 7.

With an engine truck, a ladder truck and the area's battalion chief all housed under one roof, the Waikiki station is a key hub in the department's coverage of East O'ahu. Ladder 7 is the second-busiest ladder company on the island, responding to more than 100 calls a month. (Pawa'a is the busiest).

Three separate watches alternate in unusual but effective nine-day cycles: one day on, one day off, another on, another off, another on, then four off. Each shift runs 24 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 a.m.

And while the guys at the station do manage the occasional game of volleyball, their work days are generally packed tight. When they aren't responding to medical calls and fire alarms, the firefighters attend to a list of mundane chores (firefighters take care of all the basic maintenance of their stations; there are no janitors), meetings, drills, training classes, commercial inspections, community outreach and other duties.

A dream come true

Firefighter Kekoa Faurot checks equipment on Ladder 7, the truck he drives to scenes of emergencies. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

"At first, I wanted to be a garbage man and ride on the truck and whistle," he says. "Then I saw a ladder truck, and that was even better. You could ride on the truck and not have to pick up garbage."

Faurot says the department has become "more professional" since he first joined more than 20 years ago, but the feeling of fraternity among firefighters remains the same.

"The station is like a second family for most of us," he says. "For some, it's a first family."

Most firefighters work a second job to make ends meet. Iwami has a yard-maintenance business. Faurot sells construction materials for G.W. Killebrew.

"I've always wanted to be a firefighter," he says. "I love this job. Helping people, working outdoors, going in the water, riding helicopters. It's like hanging out with the boys, although we do take our work very seriously."

Hardy takes special joy in welcoming new firefighters. At Waikiki, newcomers are required to buy cake and ice cream for the entire station. Sometimes they're asked to lend a hand in the "backboard drill," wherein, under the guise of practicing a routine transport procedure, veterans will strap the newbie onto a trauma board and deposit him in the front yard for all to see.

Training day, every day

With emergency medical services stretched thin by a population that is not only growing but spreading geographically, fire stations have been called on to bridge the gaps. More than two-thirds of all the calls that HFD stations receive these days are health-related.

"Over the years, we've gone from a being a fire department to being an all-hazard department," says Assistant Fire Chief Kenneth Silva.

This shift means firefighters are now required to undertake more training than ever before.

When George Kaopuiki joined the department 15 years ago, recruits received 12 weeks of training. These days, basic training lasts 28 weeks, and there's been talk of adding four more weeks just to give recruits a fighting chance at absorbing all the information and developing all of the skills the job now entails.

"Our goal is to give them enough reps to feel comfortable, do it safely and operate as a team," says Kaopuiki, a firefighter at the department's training center.

The number of new recruits varies according to the number of vacancies that need to be filled each year. This month's incoming class is 48 strong, including four trainees who will move on to a different agency.

Over the course of seven months, these recruits will receive, among other things, 110 hours of emergency medicine training, 104 hours of driving instruction, 160 hours of hazardous-materials training, and 40 hours on water safety. They'll study ordinances and regulations and learn how to conduct inspections. They'll practice fighting fires on simulators that are just as hot as the real thing.

The training never ends. Nearly every area requires some manner of periodic upkeep. Emergency medical training, for example, requires 24 hours of refresher work every year.

First fires

The difference between practice and the real deal can be dramatic. Tanaka recalls one of his first fires.

"It was just a small structure fire," he said, "but my heart was going a hundred miles a minute.

"I was just trying to remember everything we went over in recruit class and not get distracted by the flames and what people were yelling back and forth to each other," he says. "It only took two or three hours, but I was completely exhausted."

Ivan Kaneshiro, 30, didn't have to wait long to get his feet wet.

"My first minute of duty, we had a water rescue in Hawai'i Kai," he recalls.

Kaneshiro's first fire was a doozy, too — an arson job that left a room and a garage stocked with propane tanks and gasoline canisters ablaze.

"Even with all of your preparation, you get a rush," Kaneshiro says. "Nothing gets you quite as pumped."

Even experienced firefighters say the sound of the alarm can trigger a Pavlovian response from their adrenal glands.

"The feeling is indescribable," says Brett Mau, an engineer with 11 years in the department. "You could be just relaxing and having a conversation with somebody, but when that alarm goes off, you go into a mode. You start thinking about all the variables and what you have to do. You get chicken skin."

24-hour devotion

With every call also comes the potential for tragedy, and every firefighter in the station has seen his share of death — from horrific accidents to fatal fires to suicides.

Faurot says he's still haunted by the memory of a girl who drowned in Waikiki a few years ago. Kaneshiro remembers a man who shot himself in the head and how the man's girlfriend begged them to try to revive him.

"The medical traumas will get to you," Kaopuiki says. "It's like going to war. There is a lot of post-traumatic stress."

The department has a Critical Stress Team to help firefighters deal with traumatic experiences, but often the firefighters take care of things on their own, talking through their feelings as they ride back to the station.

Still, to people like Leighson Tanaka, 28, the essence of the work is rooted in a kind of optimism, a belief that each person can make a difference.

"Every day I come to work, I think of it as I'm devoting myself to serving the public for 24 hours," says Tanaka. "We do whatever they ask. If it's a leaky faucet, we'll fix it. If it's a structure fire, we'll put it out.

"When you drive down the street with the sirens on, some people think that you're just tying up traffic," Tanaka says. "But we're thinking that there's a life to be saved."