A dust storm touches down over Austin as all the 126 crew members are separated into different houses.
Tropes:
- Bearer of Bad News: Billy Tyson, as much as he really doesn’t want to be.
- Calling the Old Man Out:
- Deadly Dust Storm: One touches down over Austin, which causes the fire houses to be spread thin throughout the area and necessitates the separated 126 members to start their first days at their new houses working under new rules.
- Downer Ending: Billy informs everyone of the station’s impending shutdown, which ends with a furious Owen punching him in the face.
- Pyrrhic Victory: For Billy, he gets a position as the new Deputy Fire Chief after Radford retires, and in a way gets to have authority to do anything he wants with the 126 fire station. That said, shutting it down for the lack of fundings and a way to satisfy his pride costs him his friendships with Owen and Judd, which he’s stoically but genuinely torn up about.
- Took a Level in Badass: Mateo, after being forced to hunker down on his way back to the 129 with his crew’s lunches, springs into action to cobble together a makeshift triage area for the people who were also caught up in the dust storm. Then, until the 126 and 129 firefighters are able to head back into the city, he single-handedly multitasks between herding survivors inside the triage area, coaching them on how to aid and treat each others’ ailments, and searching the surrounding area for anyone else in distress.
- You, Get Me Coffee: At the 129 fire station, Captain Tatum looks down on Mateo and refuses to let him on any emergency calls, instead saddling him with cleaning and meal pickups.
