tparlin

I’ve been doing it for a couple of weeks and I love it! I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about getting into a martial art!

I spoke with Matt about coming to Canada when he records his next album and playing a guitar solo. He seemed to be for it, so we’ll see…

My first year in the fire service has been an exciting one to say the least, filled with physical as well as emotional ups and downs. I first decided to become a firefighter about 1 year after the 9/11 attacks, but lack of time kept me out of the fire service until May of 2003 when I started my own web design business. Running my own business allowed me to work from home, making my situation ideal for joining up. I went down to the fire department and asked about joining up. That’s when I learned that many towns have fire departments that are 100% volunteer. This completely changed my impression of the volunteer fire service. Admittedly, I had thought of volunteers as being at some kind of lower level than paid firefighters because…. well, because they were volunteers. I had no idea that entire towns were protected by the volunteer fire service.

So I submitted an application, went through an interview and after I was initially accepted, the first order of business was for me to have a background check performed. After my background check was complete I had to go through a firefighters physical. They checked my ears, eyes, lungs, blood pressure, etc. The lung capacity test, which consisted of blowing as hard as I possibly could for as long as I possibly could into a half inch diameter tube, was among one of the more difficult procedures I had to go through. Then there was 3 minutes of climbing stairs, and my first of three shots making up my hepatitis vaccination. Then I had to go through what’s called a stress test, basically an EKG with a twist. During this experience they attached electrodes to me while I walked, jogged and sprinted on a treadmill.

Once I got through all that, I was issued a pager and bunker gear; that’s when the fun began.

Phase II was all about getting trained. While a firefighter’s training is literally NEVER complete, all firefighters both paid AND volunteer must go through a minimum level of training known as Firefighter I training. For me, this involved going through the Firefighter I program at the Fire Academy. This is where I really got my first lessons on what it’s like to be a firefighter. The course was about 4 months long and consisted of both classroom and practical training.

The practical training was very taxing to say the least. Throughout my stint at the fire academy, I did confined space training, which consisted of dragging myself blindfolded underneath wires about 6 inches to 1 foot off the ground, crawling through very small diameter tubes and sliding in and out of very thin openings to get between different rooms. All this while wearing full turn-out gear and an air pac. I went through live fire exercises, ladder training, search & rescue training, disoriented firefighter training, which consisted of finding your way out of a building while blindfolded. I went through ropes & knots training, air pac training, hose deployment training, CPR training, hydrant training, and more. There was a 5 story tower that we had to run up and down while wearing our full gear, air pac and carrying hose to ensure we had the physical ability needed for high-rise fires. There was plenty more, but I think you get the point.

During my training I was classified as a tactical support firefighter with my department, which means I wasn’t allowed to do any firefighting and only allowed to provide support for firefighters. As you might think, I was very eager to finish up at the academy so I could become classified as tactical. Believe it or not, completing all of this training and becoming a tactical firefighter was the easy part…

The academy can only train you for structural firefighting, but there is so much more to being a firefighter than structural firefighting. There are auto extrications, CO calls, rescues and literally every call you go to there’s something new to learn. The best you can do is to wear all your personal protective gear and hope that you will get paired up with someone who will teach you.

After my first year I moved and haven’t been on a fire department since. However, I would highly recommend this to anyone considering it. It was an experience I’ll never forget.