Heroes: you can’t crash a spaceship these days without being rescued by one.

Whether super, local or sporting, heroes are everywhere; the definition of the word stretched so far it’s torn a ligament. I can’t say I’m particularly comfortable with holding people aloft, not least because I’m an eight stone weakling. I’ve just always struggled with setting someone apart based on their goal-scoring prowess or the superior jut of their cheekbones. No, I suppose I don’t kick balls as well as they do, but I’m still not sure the skill is Herculean in nature.

The obsession with heroes starts young. I remember being asked incessantly as a child to depict my hero with vision and crayon. I can’t say I ever really captured Mr Tumnus’s likeness; I don’t think my heart was in it. Sure, he was the best faun I knew – but a hero? And that’s the difficulty with hero worship. First you have to decide on the qualities that you value, whether the fastest, smartest or just plain faun-iest, before picking the best in the field. There’s too much margin for error in this short-listing process.

Recently though, I spent a day among a group of people who had even this cynic reaching for her sketchbook and Crayola colours. You would think that surrounding oneself with firefighters would be heroes enough for one outing. But add in ten year-old Lauren Cosgrove and you have yourself a Justice League. Lauren, her lovely mum, Laura, and I met at the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s training centre in Cambuslang to share the honour of being a firefighter for a day. You might ask yourself what exactly this fool has done to deserve such access; and you’d be right to do so. The answer, I suppose, is little less than nothing. Lauren, however, takes deserving to a whole new generation.

As we donned our protective suits, helmets and Rock On, Tommy braces, Laura explained that her bubbly little girl, who was at that moment regaling everyone with her on-point political commentary, suffers from life-limiting condition, necrotizing enterocolitis, meaning that not only is she fed through tubes attached to her stomach but a line to her heart is also constantly necessary. In the cute pink backpack across Lauren’s shoulders lives a nest of machinery, keeping her alive. That’s a lot of baggage for one kid.

But far from being weighed down, Lauren uses her rucksack as a stepping stone, boosting her to new heights. Our host for the day, Scott Smith, spoke of Lauren’s relationship with the Fire Service charities, for whom she has been raising awareness and money for several years, so much so that she was recently nominated for a Spirit of Fire award. Lauren’s big heart doesn’t only reach out to the Fire Service for whom she has always wanted to work though; last year she set up her own charity, Lauren’s Lifelines, to help other children affected by the condition with which she lives. That ability to find thought for others in spite of problems that, for most, would be understandably overwhelming is incredible in one so young. And she has a cool bag. Basically, she’s a real life Mary Poppins.

After a tour of the centre’s facilities, which include an extensive academic building, practical facilities, and a decent canteen, Scott led us outside to show us the ropes. Unfortunately the ropes were on fire. And they weren’t ropes. They were cars.

The grounds of the training centre are, in short, like the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Far from being a judgement on the clientele, whose verve surpasses nineties britpop, it’s the site itself that evokes Romero flashbacks. A purpose built town, of which Robert Owen would be envious; upturned hatchbacks and burnt-out trains surround the scene, plumbed into hot and cold running propane to be set safely alight and even more safely extinguished at will. Throughout the day, we would visit an industrial plant, a multi-storey block and a stretch of motorway littered with trucks and transits, used to provide new and on-duty personnel with experience of as many different situations as can possibly be staged. It’s impressive, it’s imperative, and, from the highest reach of the fire station’s Aerial Rescue Pump, it’s impossibly far away.

Thirty metres in the air but high as a kite, I looked down on the land below and reminded myself that the usual passengers on this tiny platform would be up there attempting to save the lives of perfect strangers. That capacity for selflessness; now there’s a quality about which even my crayons could wax lyrical.

Back on the ground, our initial challenge was to attend a vehicle fire and, luckily for me, Lauren was as keen as mustard. Unluckily, it turns out that mustard is also sneaky  and she volunteered me as first response. Hose in hand, I stepped towards the only blaze whose integrity I had ever challenged. Inside the basement garage, the car burned furiously, heat pricking every exposed millimetre of my face even at a coward’s distance. Scott demonstrated how to approach the situation, staying low to the ground, creeping forward, sneaking up on the flames and sending them eventually to a watery grave. I won’t lie, seeing the fire die under my influence was intoxicating. I’m not power hungry, but even my mania was mega-lo-ving it.

By the time we had moved on to the apartment block though, my fatigue matched my enthusiasm. Since we would be indoors, breathing apparatus was to be added to our attire, the weight of which was enough to grate on my knee joints. But after following our brave leader into the building, checking the doorways and edging our way around the walls of a too-dark room to greet a fire burning so fiercely as to roll over the ceiling, I must admit I’d forgotten the weight on my back in favour of the weight on my mind.

On instruction, I knelt in the room’s entryway, pulsing the stream of water first into the roof’s corners to cool the ceiling blaze then towards the fire itself in an arc. It’s difficult to convey the intensity of that situation, even in such controlled circumstances, with a professional firefighter by my side. There wasn’t fear as such, but pressure, both psychological and atmospheric, palpable and limitless. I knew, of course, that I was never in any real danger. After all, I was standing before the safest fire in the world; one with an on/off switch no less. But I’ve never had any problems with extrapolation. This was as real as it gets for me, but for the guys and dolls on duty in the building opposite, reality is somewhat burn-ier. Perspective is a beautiful thing.

If I was asked to draw my hero these days, I’d probably draw Lauren. Granted, she’s not the faun-iest, but what she lacks in goat hooves she more than makes up for in drive and empathy and downright courage. And surely that constitutes a hero in anyone’s book.

Paula.