|
|
|
|
|
|
by mindcrime
741 days ago
|
|
|
Firefighters now days are closer to problem-solvers than they are firefighters. We just happen to respond to emergency calls too. I often joke that if a UFO landed in the middle of I-40 outside of Raleigh, the first agency dispatched would be the Fire Department. We're[1] sort of the fallback "do it all" agency that goes to the crazy shit nobody else knows how to handle. Grass fire? Send the fire department. Car crashed into a building? Send the fire department? Person locked in the police station / courthouse after hours? Send the fire department (taken from an actual incident I overheard last night while monitoring Fire/EMS dispatch in my area). Cow trapped in a ravine? Send the fire department. Apartment flooding? Send the fire department. Mysterious smell in the area? Send the fire department. UFOs? Send the fire department. And so on and on and on... "All hazards" really is the name of the game these days. [1]: I say "we" out of habit, even though I'm not on an active roster anywhere at the moment. I mostly gave up firefighting due to the demands of my day job, but I still consider myself a firefighter at heart and may well join up with a volunteer department again some day. |
|
|
Absolutely! One of the more recent calls I attended was a 'residential [smoke] alarm sounding', with no further details. Call turned out to be a woman desperate to turn off the water to the house, after a hot water pipe had burst in the kitchen with no other way to turn it off. Not sure how dispatch got 'smoke alarm' from 'hot water pipe', though panicked people tend to do and say bizarre things under obtuse acute stress.
Some digging (the mains tap was burried under a decade's worth of pine needles) and one multi-tool later, we had the water turned off.
> I mostly gave up firefighting due to the demands of my day job, but I still consider myself a firefighter at heart and may well join up with a volunteer department again some day.
The 'job' is very much Hotel California.
Whilst I'm 'career' in my day job (which only turns operational in an incident management sense during the 'on' season), I still regularly volunteer with my local brigade when I can, which isn't much these days unfortunately. We've always said family and work come first, though even an hour or two here and there definitely help, even if its only with odd jobs around the station. It also helps keep one's skills sharp, as monotonous as maintaining BA sets can be, it helps keep the muscle memory exercised.