My Short Firefighting Story
It is three in the morning. Tossing and turning in your bed you seem to not be able to fall back asleep for some odd reason. All of a sudden, you smell something burning. You open your bedroom door and are hit in the face with a dark cloud of thick smoke bellowing up the stairs. Your hit the floor just as you remember being told as a child and you race to get your family out of your house. You call 911 and it seems to take years but help finally arrives. Firefighters rush in to knock down the fire that started in your basement; EMTs are treating your family and you for smoke inhalation, and the police are on the phone finding your family arrangements for a place to stay that night and are controlling the ever so growing crowd around the devastating scene which not fifteen minutes ago was your wonderful home. This is a scene I am personally faced with all the time.
Growing up a kid loves to see a big red fire truck fly down the road lights and sirens at full blast. I can remember one of the very first times I was faced with such a view and I can tell you I was in awe. But for me it was not because the truck was red, shiny and making a lot of noise it was due to the fact that every face that was looking out the window of the truck as it flew by I personally knew. See if we were to take a trip back through my family tree the past four generations of my family has had at least one firefighter in it. Growing up the firehouse was my favorite place to go with my father. I would run around the truck floor playing on the trucks and when I heard the loud beeps of a fire pager and then the siren atop the firehouse I would run out the door and watch as all the volunteer firefighters came from whatever they were previously doing and rush to the firehouse. They would run into the firehouse throw on their gear in seconds and get on the truck. Next thing you know they would be flying down the road. I would then run to the control room where all the radios were and listen for familiar voices. Little did I know then that firefighting was injected into my blood from a very early age; and in the following years I would be finding myself doing the same exact thing.
As you sit on the bumper of the ambulance you begin to think. You wonder where all these people would be if there was no fire. Unless you live in a city or a very heavily populated area with a lot of income you probably are surrounded with volunteer Medical and Fire Protection services. Most of these people are your neighbors they work around your town as the butcher, the teacher, your son’s football coach, or even your daughter’s seventeen year old boyfriend. They are everyday people who also volunteer their time and life to help protect and serve your community. Many do not realize how a volunteer fire department truly works. I personally have heard so many complaints when it comes to firefighters when their response time is not within two minutes of their phone call to 911. But in reality there is a long chain of events that has to happen for emergency responders to get to your problem.
Let us fall back on the situation you were faced with earlier. It is around four in the morning when you woke up and rushed your family out of your house. We will stick with 3:00 exactly to make things easier. By the time you get outside it is now 3:03. You take out your phone and call 911. You hear “911 what is your emergency and where are you located.” Filled with adrenaline and shock you try to respond but your voice is so rushed and stress the call taker at the 911 center cannot understand you. You finally catch yourself and are able to give your information. The call taker then types your information into the C.A.D (Computer Automated Dispatch). As he hits enter the computer recognizes your address and sends the information to the other side of the room where the dispatchers are. The majority of dispatch centers, what normal citizens know as “911”, work are actually very simple and complicated at the same time. You have call takers, the people who are the ones you hear when you physically call 911. They are highly trained to help in many situations such as directions in child birth, domestic violence negotiations and many other incidents. When you call 911 whatever information that is linked to your phone number appears on their screen. They take down whatever additional information you have and then send it across the room to the dispatchers. There is then normally six dispatchers, two for each the police, medical, and fire dispatches. Based on your emergency on your emergency depends on who gets dispatched. For your specific emergency all three would become very busy. So before we said the time you called was 3:03, now by the time it gets to the dispatcher you have about two to three minutes. The dispatcher then pages out your towns specific fire department. Like I said earlier many of the towns in America run on volunteer fire departments.
Now given the previous time our pager will most likely go off at 3:05 or close to it. If you have never heard a fire pager trip it would not make sense at first to you. Every department has their own set of tones (tones for a fire pager can be defined as a different variation of sounds at different pitches), along with a set of very high pitched rapid beeps. As a firefighter your brain is conditioned after a few weeks to respond to these beeps with adrenaline and a sense of urgency. I am a somewhat heavy sleeper during the night and even when I am out cold, the tones of the pager will make my body react. So after this set of tones I would then proceed to hear the dispatcher as followed: “Attention Chester Fire Department respond for a working structure fire, 153 Greenwich Avenue with a cross of Main street and Duff Lane, That’s for Chester Fire Department respond for a working structure fire, 153 Greenwich Avenue with a cross of Main street and Duff Lane, We are receiving multiple calls, Time now is zero three zero five.” This is the most vital information on response. As you progress through the fire department you tend to learn about your town and your response area. And the initial dispatch gives you insight on what your situation is going to be. My fire district at its furthest points can be around or even more than 25 miles (we have three firehouses spread throughout the district). There are plenty of different areas such as: residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural, hydrant fed, or no hydrants at all. All these are important on our initial response. If you live in a spot with no fire hydrants the fire department is going to either bring in tanker trucks which are basically just a water tank with lights and sirens or they will draft (pull) water from a nearby water source (such as a pool, pond, or lake). Also the term “working fire” was used in the dispatch; there are two was for a “structure fire” [any building that has a fire, smoke or smell of something burning] can be dispatched. The first is a possible structure fire; the caller saw smoke while he drove by a house, smells something burning in the house and can’t determine its location, there is no definite fire, or there is a small fire [such as a oven fire]. The other is a Working Fire; the caller sees smoke flames, there is a definite fire, or your house is engulfed. So the initial dispatch for your address 153 Greenwich Ave is a Residential Hydranted area. And the fact that it was dispatched as a Working fire, with multiple calls means there is defiantly a fire and there is a specific address. If you know the area well you also know what type of house you’re dealing with. Is it multiple floors, are there long driveways, are the buildings close together, and are there any businesses around. In a thirty second dispatch so much information is revealed. All of which a firefighter is thinking about as he makes his way to the firehouse.
Normally firefighters are responding from home or work. I want to take a minute to rant about one of my biggest pet peeves that has to come with responding to fire calls. In New York state volunteer firefighter are allowed to display a “blue light” while responding to the firehouse. While this blue flashing light to most drivers means nothing to most, it is considered a courtesy light for us. Yes we might drive like *******s sometimes when responding. We might break a rule of the road occasionally but we do it with the best regards. All I ask is when you see a car in your rear view mirror pull over for ten seconds and let him pass. Usually others will follow your actions. In my town there are a few volunteer firefighters who live on the same street as I do. To get to the firehouse we have at a minimum two traffic lights and a stop for a “T” intersection. If the second street light is red, we will usually bypass it with a side street. But all of this makes it easier if you let us by when it is safe too. We are not going to blow through red lights (while I have seen it done in the later parts of the night) and we are not going to excessively speed. But we are trying to get to the firehouse for an emergency.
So with the time it takes to safely navigate the roads and make it to the firehouse it is now around 3:10. As a remember you made the phone call 3:03, That is ten minutes since you woke up but those ten minutes have felt like an hour as you watch smoke poor out the chimney of your house. As I pull up to the firehouse I quickly pull into a spot along the road throw my car in park and race inside. As the adrenaline pumps others have made it before me. Joe W The Third our most reliable driver has beat everyone like normal as I race in he is jumping into the driver seat. My Lieutenant Timmy was 45 seconds ahead of me, so he is making his way over to the truck. Tommy comes running in behind me and gives a loud “Chyea MO” ( a common phrase for excitement or agreement around my firehouse) . Tommy and I have grown up together since he joined the firehouse three years ahead of me.
We makes a quick joke as we rush to get our gear on, which consist the following sequence: Kicking off shoes and dropping phone and keys in top of locker simultaneously, pulling bunker pants ( boots already inserted into the pants with the pants pushed down around them, there are also suspenders to keep them up) out of the locker, getting in them, pull nomex hood (Nomex hood is a common piece of firefighting equipment. It is placed on the head on top of a firefighter's face mask. The hood protects the portions of the head not covered by the helmet and face mask from the intense heat of the fire) over head, swinging your jacket on quickly grabbing your helmet, mask and gloves and racing over to the truck. Now this may seem like a long process but in reality you train to get all of that AND a full breathing apparatus on in under a minute and thirty seconds.
As we are getting dressed I notice two other senior guys (senior guys are guys who have been a firefighter for longer than I have normally 4-5 years as a firefighter) Paul Quirke, who is also a NYC firefighter, and Greg Schmid, an off duty 911 dispatcher, running over to the truck. Meaning we have a crew to leave with. I as I grab my helmet the lights of the ladder truck start to flash, meaning it is getting ready to leave. I race over as Tommy opens the door for me and reaches his hand down to pull me up and close the door behind me. Remember that not 10 minutes ago we all were also sleeping. Now wide awake adrenaline pumping we are racing down the road to your house. You live about 5 miles from my firehouse and about another 10 from our second house. Our chief pulls on scene at 3:16, two minutes before we do. As we are connecting our mask and figuring out who is doing what jobs when we get on scene the all the commotion stops as we hear a radio transmission. “Chester Car 3 On Scene Flames showing first floor” “Chester Car 3, Orange County 911” “Orange County 911 Chester Car 3” “[Chester Car 3] I am on scene working fire get sound my second alarm and get my fast team to the scene” As we hear this me and Tommy both let out a “Chyea MO” “F’ck’n A” and Tim looks back saying “I need two guys to the roof and two guys for a Search” Our engine is right behind us, as we were pulling out 4 other guys were pulling up to the firehouse so they were able to leave 30 seconds behind us. Jack my good friend’s grandfather is driving, my father is the officer and there are 3 senior guys and two probationary firefighters, one of which is my sister. (I had beaten them out of the house so I left with my car instead of waiting for my father).
A “second alarm” is a normal action for a working fire. The way fire departments work is the district is split into “boxes.” These boxes are in the Dispatcher’s CAD and have prearranged list of what is to happen for extra units for each box. A first alarm for a structure fire for my department at night is initial response of all our units granted we have the man power, and a FAST team to be put on standby from one of our surrounding departments. A Firefighter Assist and Search Team (FAST), also known as a Rapid Intervention Team/Crew (RIT/RIC), is a team of two or more firefighters dedicated solely to search and rescue of other firefighters in distress. FAST teams have no other operational assignment during an incident. Multiple alarm fires may require multiple FAST/RIC teams. On a second alarm, all of Chester’s pagers are resounded for additional man power to respond, (basically for those who did get up for the initial call now know there is a serious incident), the Fast Team is told to respond to the fire, An additional Engine from a nearby department. Also, 3 additional engines to stand by, one at each of three firehouses in our district to cover, just in case we get an additional call. So at three in the morning you woke up to smoke in your house. As you called 911 and got everyone else out the fire grew and spread to the first floor. When you made the call to 911 you started a chain of reactions that woke up firefighters from at least 5 towns, police officers from at least two, and EMS personal from at least two. Most of which, besides the police officers, are mainly volunteer. We arrived on scene about 3:18, which is fifteen minutes after you called 911. Those fifteen minutes may have felt like forever, but now you know how much goes on behind the scene of emergency personal getting to your house.
I am always asked why I choose to volunteer my time at the firehouse. I joined at the age of 16, it was fate for me to join. It’s a lifestyle to be a firefighter. I can never really answer the question of why specifically though. Is it because I am insane? I believe all of us who are firefighters have to be a little insane. Who likes to be woken up at three in the morning just risk their lives. Since 1990 there has been over 2000 firefighters in the United States die while on duty, this does not cover those who have died from complications due to prolonged firefighting. In 2008 alone 118 firefighters died in the line of duty. Also this brings up the question that a firefighter is always faced with; “Why do you run into a burning building while everyone else is running out?” There are plenty of answers for this but it is a question that plays through firefighters head all the time. What drives us to get on a truck and fly down the road to a fire or a car accident?
Well I got a glimpse of why during one of our “normal” or so I thought fire calls. We were at our firehouse for our monthly meeting when we our pagers tripped. Meeting was suspended and we all rushed upstairs. “Attention Chester Fire Department, respond for a roll over MVA (motor vehicle accident) One car off the roadway, Possible entrapment (victim cannot personally get out of the car due to injury or the car damage pinning them in, we would need to cut apart the car). I jumped on the engine as we pulled out behind the rescue truck (the rescue has neither hose nor water, it is filled with stabilization tools, vehicle and residential execration equipment). Flying down the road to a normal section where we go for accidents all the time. We hear a radio transmission “Orange County 911 to Chester Car 1, be advise Police on scene reporting negative entrapment but one victim was ejected. A Medivac (an emergency helicopter that will fly the patient to the nearest trauma center) has been launched at the request of EMS.” This totally changes our game plan, we left thinking we would be cutting a person out of a car, which could have meant minimal or mediocre, or serious injuries ; but now, someone was thrown from the car and they are seriously hurt. We pull up on scene to see a sea of flashing lights and emergency personal. As I jump off the truck I grab my tools and begin to walk toward the scene. All of the sudden I am pinned to the truck with my fellow firefighters fist against my chest. Brandon is the same age as I at the time he was in high school with me. “You can’t go down there,” he said; seeing my confused face he then says, “Its Teena, Tori was driving and Teena is the one who was ejected.” Teena is one of my closest friends from high school. She is now lying in the grassy field bleeding from her head. The car is 40 feet from her wrapped around a tree. The other guys notice who it is also, and my father tells me to grab the extinguisher and go to the car. This places me out of the way and keeps me occupied making sure the car doesn’t overheat or catch fire as the others disconnect the battery. I can hear Teena talking to the EMT’s as I walk by giving them false information about her age. She is in a lot of pain and is disoriented. As I make it to the car I am quickly called back by my father. He asks me to give him her real personal information because she is telling the EMT’s she is 14. Teena is actually 17 but due to her head damage she is disoriented. I give him the information as they carry Teena to the ambulance so she can be driven to the helicopter the second engine landed in the field down the road.
This is still one of the most dramatic scenes I have ever been on since I have joined. I have seen many car accidents, many fatal accidents, dismembered body parts you name it most likely I have seen it. But it was never as personal as that night. Seeing my friend, helpless in a grassy field opened my eyes. This is why I do it. I volunteer to help those people who are my friends, my neighbors, or even those I do not even know. I risk my life in hopes that I will save someone who can save their own. I believe this is why most firefighters risk their lives. It’s not about the pay, some people rag on volunteers saying they are not real firefighters. It’s not about the glory; do not get me wrong when we do a good job well gloat about it, but about having the courage to save someone’s life. I feel that while we are not on the same level of those who go across seas to fight wars against other people, but we are pretty **** close. We fight the war of nature and failure of man kind’s creations. A snow storm causes you to crash your car, we jump in ours make it to the firehouse and drive the exact road you just crashed on. Lightning hits your house and sets it on fire; we rush to put it out. Someone is threatening to blow up a building with a bomb we are put on standby just in case he goes through with it. It is what we do; we can’t help be risk our lives for the cause. And until the day there are no fires there will always be firefighters. Whether they come from a family line of firefighters, or a friend encourages another, there will always be those willing to risk their lives for another’s. It is who we are, it is what we do, and you will never see us give up on anyone.
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