Just hours into his first day back on the job, 38 year-old D.C. firefighter Michael LaCore was helping to fight a fire. He could not afford to be afraid; he had a job to do.

Today ABC 7 News reporter Andrea McCarren spoke with LaCore, who suffered second and third degree burns battling a rowhouse fire on Capitol Hill in October.

Asked if he ever considered leaving firefighting, he said, "No, not at all. It's like riding a bicycle. You fall down. You get scraped up. You hop [up] and you get right back on."

LaCore was wearing all of his safety gear when he plunged into the flames. He recounted, "I had no idea how bad I was burned." The safety gear, he said, "is not meant to walk through fire. And basically that's what I had to do."

LaCore spent nearly two months recovering at Washington Hospital Center. He said he found strength in seeing others in even worse shape than he was. "I felt like I was just being inconvenienced and these guys were hurt. That really helped me mentally... I saw how much pain I was in. I was like, I can't imagine what they were going through."

Now, the married father of four is happy to be alive and at work, and sharing a message with his fellow firefighters: once you get burned, your life is not over.

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