Kevin Dowdell’s Last Fire

Photographs by Haruka Sakaguchi To a firefighter who is inside one, a fire creates as much darkness as heat. Flames start bright but throw off smoke that can swathe everything in pitch black. Lieutenant Kevin Dowdell did not fight fires so much as he groped through and problem-solved them, relying on half-blind judgment and expertise—and his fellow firefighters to keep flaming debris off his back. At the cindering end of a successful 24-hour shift with the New York City Fire Department, Kevin…