For the first time since two large explosions nearly killed several firefighters and sent eight of them to the hospital, some of those men have begun to tell their stories about what it was like inside that inferno.

Hear our entire interview now.

Among those injured were Firefighter Heath Tye and Capt. Terry Sivadon.

They tell KRMG that when they initially entered the former Barnard Elementary School building at 17th Street and South Lewis Ave.,  that fateful morning of September 5th, they didn't see any signs that they were heading into a potentially deadly situation.

"We had knocked it down initially from the outside," Capt. Sivadon told KRMG. "It looked like a pretty routine fire. We'd kind of knocked it down a little bit, and we were gonna go inside, go down and find the door where it was at, open the door and put it out. We've made hundreds of fires like that. No indicators of any explosions or anything that just struck us weird."

He continued, "Little did we know that there was smoke and combustion in that crawl space beneath us and above us in that attic space. So as soon as we opened the door, that let air in to it and forced the fire underneath us and that was the first explosion, which was a backdraft underneath us. That's what knocked us off our feet. About five seconds later, the attic went off and that's what pushed the fire down on top of us.

"It was just all of a sudden, we were knocked down and then we're on fire, we're burning."

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigators say the seven men inside and one standing at the exterior door were subjected to temperatures estimated at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The brilliant flash of light was followed by sudden darkness, debris falling as the ceiling collapsed and then numerous amounts of radio traffic and yells as crews inside and outside quickly moved to assess what had happened and effect a rescue.

The men's training went into play as they used the fire hose as a sort of roadmark back to where they had entered.

Tye admitted that at first, "I didn't think we would make it out."

Hear the full, dramatic interview with Heath and Tye by clicking the link above.