heat. Then imagine trying to find your way out -- alive.

Bermuda's firefighters go through this all the time, with one major exception.

They have to be able to save other people.

Now imagine being in the total black and fierce heat again. You feel like you're about to melt.

Your head is starting to burn. And you're crawling an inch from the floor to escape the deadly vapours of smoke and fumes from a huge burning fire.

Now you're a firefighter. You're wearing heavy boots with steel toe caps.

Heavy pants which sling around you're shoulders. A weighty overcoat and helmet.

And of course, you're breathing as regularly as you can -- through breathing apparatus which weighs heavily on your back.

It feels like you're Darth Vadar inside one of those masks, plus you've got a 23-pound tank of decompressed air over your shoulders. The air only lasts 20 minutes, so every second is crucial in a real fire.

And the rest of your kit is already weighing you down by about 45 pounds. Now you're a professional.

And you have to be able to keep you're calm.

Bermuda Fire Service put four journalists -- including me -- through their paces yesterday, as they demonstrated the training they give to Norwegian Majesty cruise ships.

A fire was burning down in the depths of the brigade's fire chamber, a maze-like building with no windows. Smoke is everywhere and the heat is intense.

We're already been in the bowels of the building, ten feet from the fire which provides the only light, for about ten or 15 minutes.

Then, at last, one of the cruise ship crews going through intensive training turns up with the hose.

The fire, blistering two wooden pallets, has just been fuelled by another. Now the heat is up to the 500-degree mark -- and that's when you're head, arms, face, neck, chest, legs...start burning.

We'd already been through the notorious training cage, trying to find our way through a labyrinth of holes in the tightest of spaces in the darkest of places.

Now we had this to contend with. The relief we all felt, when we finally found daylight -- drenched with sweat, covered in soot and breathing deeper than ever -- was almost as intense as the heat.

Lt. Anthony Caisey, looking after us, reassured us later that one firefighter was watching each of us.

"What you did today was what a recruit firefighter would only be allowed to do after eight weeks' intensive training,'' he said.

Thanks, we thought. It's all right knowing you have experts over your shoulder in tight spots like that. It's not something anybody would relish unless they were a pyromaniac.

Either that, or they would have sufficient guts and courage to sign up for the Bermuda Fire Service.

Photos by David Skinner TIGHT SPOT -- Reporter Neil Roberts finds his way to freedom after crawling through a concrete tube during firefighter training.

Graphic file name: ROBERTS1