As a firefighter prepared to enter a burning home in Modesto's airport neighborhood, flames burst through the window he stood next to. A flash of white fire hit him and embers whirled around his face.
The firefighter didn't know at the time what caused the surge, but when he returned, uninjured, to the station after the incident, he reviewed the video from his helmet camera. He saw another firefighter spraying water into an adjacent window.
It was a "teachable moment," said Capt. Buck Condit of the Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District.