On the evening of July 16, 2010, Liu Lei, assistant to the squadron leader of the Dagushan Squadron and the third non-commissioned officer of the Dagushan Squadron of the Development Zone Brigade of the Dalian Public Security Fire Detachment, was preparing to attend the 100-day banquet of his comrade-in-arms' son. At this time, I received a call from the team saying that there was an explosion in the oil tank in the pipe area. Liu Lei didn't care at first, he thought it might be a false positive. Dagushan Island is full of construction sites, and some people think that the construction unit blows up the mountain as an oil tank.

When he arrived at the squadron, he heard that the oil tank really exploded, and he rushed to the top of Liu Lei's head with blood, and the oil tank exploded!

The Dagushan Squadron is responsible for the firefighting duties of this 25-square-kilometer peninsula. There are many oil tanks on the island, and few people can tell how many there are. Xingang Terminal loads and exports 15 million tons of crude oil every year. As far as a single tank is concerned, tanks with a diameter of 80 meters, a height of 22 meters, and a reserve of 100,000 tons of crude oil abound. From the beginning of the alarm bell, Liu Lei's mind was full of oil, fire, and explosions. To go to this fire is to die, everyone knows this truth. But what Liu Lei wanted had nothing to do with life and death, he just wanted to drive the fire truck faster and arrive at the fire scene one minute earlier. And when he came to the fire, the scene he saw was even more tragic than he imagined.

The fire squadron is only 2.7 kilometers away from the oil depot at the Newport Wharf where the explosion occurred, but the winding mountain road is much farther than that. Due to the obscuration of Dagu Mountain, Liu Lei and his comrades-in-arms did not see the smoke at first. After the fire truck turned a big corner, the road was flooded with a retreating crowd. Crowds of people driving agricultural tricycles, motorcycles, and running on foot poured in like a tidal wave.

Behind the fleeing crowd, a soaring mushroom cloud was spreading from the top to all directions, with a blinding white light at the bottom. Liu Lei thought for a moment that *** had exploded. At the same time, a 900-millimetre-diameter oil pipeline near tank No. 103 burst and a turbid black column of oil rose from the ground at a height of about 20 meters. The column of oil rushed to the highest point and fell, turning into a ball of fire. In other words, a waterfall of fire is erupting from the edge of tank No. 103, and it is turning into a flowing fire, which spreads over the ditch and the dam.

The fleeing workers and ordinary people saw the fire trucks approaching, slowed down, and looked back to see the five fire trucks of the Dagushan Fire Squadron plunging into the sea of fire like arrows, as if saying goodbye to them.

The alarm was received at 18:12 and arrived at the fire scene at 18:19, and the Dagushan Fire Squadron took a total of 7 minutes. Liu Lei was the first to jump from the fire truck, and he was the first person from the fire brigade to reach the fire scene. From the time they set foot on the land of the oil depot, they fought for 40 minutes, carried it for 7 hours, and fought for 15 hours...... The Dagushan Fire Squadron held out on to the fire for a month. Until the final withdrawal on August 19, it was extremely arduous and endured.

After Liu Lei got out of the car, his combat boots stepped on the flowing fire and more than 20 centimeters of viscous crude oil, and the flames were full. The boots stepped on it, and the fire splashed. Liu Lei reported the fire situation to the brigade leader, stuffed his mobile phone into the trouser pocket of his combat uniform, and did not answer any calls for 48 hours. Liu Lei didn't know that at this moment, his wife Li Yang sent him three text messages in a row.

Article 1: "God bless you, we haven't had children yet." ”

Article 2: "Oil fumes are toxic, wear air respirators." ”

Article 3: "Our mother burns incense at home and asks the Buddha to bless you." ”

Liu Lei didn't see the text messages, and his phone was soaked in foam. Li Yang saw the explosion of the Dagushan oil tank in Dalian from the rolling subtitles of the TV news, and immediately thought that this was the management area of Liu Lei's squadron, and she began to be frightened. If Li Yang went to the scene, what would he see was more than danger? It was a firefighter who was much smaller than the behemoth's oil tank and threw himself into the fire, confronting the oil and fire with his flesh and blood, and starred in a shocking feat.

Entering the sea of fire, Liu Lei ordered the car to drive towards the head of the fire, and they went directly to the 900 mm thick pipe that burst and caught fire near the No. 103 tank. By the time I got off the bus, the mushroom cloud had evolved into a jet-black cloud dozens of kilometers wide, completely obscuring the sky. And the white light of fire is more dazzling than sunlight. Liu Lei thought, if there is purgatory in the underworld, but that's it. He and his comrades were only a dozen meters away from the pillar of fire, and the black pillar of crude oil jumped up into a waterfall of fire and fell behind them, and they fought in the arch-like waterfall.

Liu Lei has 14 years of military experience and has been in and out of the fire thousands of times, and he knows in his heart that what they have to do is not to extinguish the fire of the 900-millimeter oil pipeline, but to spray a full tank of oil with huge pressure, and it is impossible to extinguish it when it comes out. What they want to keep is tank 106, which stores 100,000 tons of crude oil 20 meters away, to keep it from being roasted by the flowing fire.

It turned out that the tactical decision made by Liu Lei was dangerous and correct.

The fireground is high in the west and low in the east, the explosion point is in the west, and the flowing fire flows into the sewer and underground ditch, and then overflows out of the ground, surrounding the No. 106 tank.

Protecting Tank 106 meant that the firefighters had given up their way out - they leaned on Tank 106 to block the oil fire erupting from a 900 mm thick pipe and cool Tank 106 at the same time. If the tank explodes, no one can escape. At this moment, Tank 103, which was only 10 meters away from the point of the flame, was in danger of exploding at any time. Liu Lei felt that the No. 103 tank might not be able to be saved. But no matter whether the No. 103 tank is safe or dangerous, the No. 106 tank must not be allowed to deflagrate, this is Liu Lei's determination. The three foam guns were controlled by Liu Lei, instructor Wu Jingyu, and squad leader He Lei. The person who carried the gun was, of course, the one closest to the fire. They held back the fire little by little, keeping the wave of fire a little farther and farther away from Tank 106, and they got closer and closer to Tank 103, which exploded at some point. What did a tank with reserves of 100,000 tons look like after it explodes? No one has seen it, and neither has Liu Lei. Two thoughts flashed through his mind for a moment:

1. Lao Tzu is going to die here today, and he hasn't lived in vain for 35 years.

Second, our lives are placed on these three foam guns, as long as we force the flowing fire, we will die. Can't hold the fire, and the person is finished with the No. 106 can.

The Volvo fire engine increased the foam gun pressure to the maximum. One person simply can't hold it. Liu Lei knelt on the ground and beaten, his hands were bald, and the foam muzzle rolled all over the ground like a snake, Liu Lei pressed it with his body, and the muzzle was aimed at the fire. Hot crude oil burrowed into his clothes and boots. Wu Jingyu sat on the ground, holding a foam gun and firing fire. He Lei carried the foam gun on his shoulder.

Before the arrival of the seven fire squadrons of the fire brigade of the development zone, except for the firefighters of the enterprise, there were only Liu Lei and his 21 comrades-in-arms on the fire ground. With their backs to Tank 106 and Tank 103, they engaged in a tug-of-war with the waves of fire in the cracks. The warriors slammed the waves of fire from the low terrain back to the high terrain, and the fireballs retook their positions. They retreated to Tank 106 and re-blocked the flowing fire. Liu Lei can't remember how long it took him. A 750-millimeter pipe exploded in front, and a huge wave of air pushed them four or five meters away. Liu Lei shouted: "Bring the water gun and retreat!" ”

Their bodies were leaning on Tank 106, and they could not, and had no way out, but to continue to charge forward.

Liu Lei later recalled that the cement blocks on the wall of the fire crackled and fell, which was the result of heat radiation, which changed the molecular structure of the cement. After the cement block peeled off, the exposed steel bar slowly bent, and you can imagine the situation of people in the fire. In the tug-of-war to defend the No. 106 tank, Liu Lei and his comrades fought for more than ten hours. Their heavy insulated suits and combat boots were filled with oil, and each had the same jet-black face, and could only distinguish the other by their voices. Lu Xiaoming, the head of the Panjin City Public Security Fire Detachment, once said that when he peed, he found that his crotch was full of black oil. During the battle, it suddenly rained in the sky. The rain passed through the clouds of oil smoke and fell to the ground like ink. Liu Lei opened his mouth on his back to catch the rain, feeling extremely cool. At the moment when the fire was scorching, they used foam guns to pump water on each other every three to five minutes, and at this moment it finally rained.

Dalian mobilized social forces to enter the fire. There was a concrete mixer truck that retreated to the vicinity of tank No. 106, and the driver did not dare to get out of the truck to operate. Don't blame the driver, the fire is too scary. If there is an explosion, the driver who gets out of the car will not be able to escape. Liu Lei climbed onto the mixer truck, fiddled twice, unloaded the concrete, and built a fire dam. Liu Lei loves to study and has won the title of "Top Ten Unique Police Officers in Liaoning Province". Unexpectedly, this hand was used at a critical moment.

Firefighter Dai Yongjin has only been in the team for three months and has no experience. Liu Lei asked him to lie on the fire truck and take the hose. Smoke from the fire came in waves, and the driver was still smoky when he closed the windows in the car. The driver jumped out of the car and saw Dai Yongjin fainted on the roof of the car, his hands still holding the water hose. His comrades-in-arms sent Dai Yongjin to the hospital for hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatment until he woke up, and his hands remained in this position for 8 hours, and he couldn't break them.

In an interview, Liu Lei talked about himself with a solemn expression. And when it came to his comrades-in-arms, tears welled up in his eyes more than once. The Dagushan Fire Squadron is a new team just formed in September 2009, except for him and instructor Wu Jingyu, who are active soldiers, the remaining 20 people are contract firefighters. "Not a single person flinched, not a single deserter". Liu Lei kept repeating these two sentences, relieved and afraid. Liu Lei and Wu Jingyu rushed forward, handing over the relatively safe water supply task to the team, but he was still afraid that his team would die in the fire. From July 16th to September 16th, Liu Lei didn't dare to sleep at night, and as soon as he fell asleep, it was all scenes of saving people, and then he was scared to wake up. According to the interpretation of the dream, what the fierce battle left him in the fire field was the anxiety of the death of all his comrades, which continued to haunt him.

Dreams are dreams, reality is reality. Why did the 20 contract firefighters sacrifice their lives and forget to die? Their answers are all the same: Liu Lei is at the forefront, and we have the bottom in our hearts.

For Liu Lei, the bigger test is not only the tug-of-war, but also the oil cut off of the valve. He noticed that the valves of tank 106 were not closed - after the explosion and the power was cut off, the valves of all tanks were open - if the oil fire inside the 900 mm thick pipe came in, tank 106 would not burn and explode. He and Zhang Bin, a technician from PetroChina, climbed up the valve two meters above the ground, one valve per person, and closed it together. At this time, Zhang Bin's co-workers climbed up to pull Zhang Bin's clothes, saying don't close it, run for your life, and was kicked down the ladder by Liu Lei. Zhang Bin said: "As a soldier, you are really a man, I will die with you." "The so-called bravery is like lightning, radiating a moving energy in the moment of life and death.

Liu Lei and Zhang Bin manually closed the oil inlet valve of tank 106, and they closed it for several hours. At the moment when Liu Lei closed the valve, instructor Wu Jingyu thought that he had sacrificed. At that time, the cast iron manhole cover that exploded was flying all over the sky, and the waves of fireballs were rampant, and no one was in a safe place. Wu Jingyu frantically shouted Liu Lei's name, and the shouting was eventually drowned out by the loud sound of the explosion in the pump room.

Liu Lei watched the video of the fire afterwards, and a heart-rending shout came out in the flame-filled picture: "Liu Lei, Liu Lei, Liu Lei......"

Liu Lei cried when he heard it, this is Wu Jingyu's voice. He copied the footage and kept it. Liu Lei didn't dare to listen to this audio, and cried when he heard it, not for himself, for the true feelings of his comrades. He said that he wanted to keep this audio until death, and said "Liu Lei" three times, so that he would remember it for the rest of his life.

At noon on the 17th, Liu Lei borrowed someone else's mobile phone to talk to his wife Li Yang. At this time, Li Yang was no longer worried, she saw Liu Lei's image in the news programs of CCTV and Dalian TV. I haven't seen him for more than ten hours, and he has lost a whole weight, but he is still alive. What Liu Lei said on the phone, Li Yang didn't hear a word, his voice was completely dumb. Two weeks later, Liu Lei went home. Li Yang saw that his legs were black, and red flesh sprouts grew on them. This is a memorial left by Liu Lei kneeling and playing foam guns for more than ten hours, and there are many band-aids on his legs. A week later, Liu Lei's body began to shed a second layer of skin.

Seeing this, Li Yang's nose was sour, he cried, and said, "I didn't expect you to suffer such a big sin." Liu Lei said: "Why are you crying? Dalian is good, the development zone is good, we are worth it, what are you crying about? ”