Cold Air. Then Heat. Then Terror.

J. Freedom du Lac: He didn't hide his scars. That part of the healing had finally begun.

Nearly half of Kevin O'Toole's body had been burned the night a vacant house turned into a firetrap, injuring seven Prince George's County firefighters. O'Toole had gotten the worst of an arsonist's malevolence, and surgeons had operated on him 13 times since – at first to save his life; more recently to reconstruct his hands, which were so badly damaged that doctors feared that he'd never regain use of the right and that they'd have to amputate the left.

Now he was sitting in the Bladensburg Volunteer Fire Department's day room, the same spot he'd been when the box alarm sounded on the night everything went wrong. The 22-year-old from New York still couldn't withstand exposure to open flames or serious heat. Even so, O'Toole had traveled four hours from Long Island just to pass time with the guys at the firehouse and help out however he could. A year and a half into his recovery, it was as close as he could get to re-becoming who he'd been.

O'Toole was wearing a Company 9 T-shirt and shorts, exposing the burns on his calves, his knees, his arms and his hands. On previous visits, he'd hidden much of the damage beneath long-sleeve shirts and pants.

"The scars will always be there," O'Toole said. "They may fade, but they're not going away. It's part of who I am now. If you can't talk about it, you can't heal yourself."