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What Firefighters Do During the Day
My firefighting shift on 12/21/15
Here is another post about what I do during my day as a firefighter. This post is the second part to My Firefighter Shift on 12/20/15.
As you probably could have guessed this post is about what I did during my shift on 12/21/15. Every fire department is different which means that we all do something different throughout the day. Your department might do something totally different in the day then what I do.
Some quick background of my department:
- We are an ALS department and I work mostly on an ambulance.
- I was working at our departments “busy” station
- This was day 2 of 2 (We work 48-hour shifts)
What firefighters do during the day
0630: My alarm goes off to get up. My engineer and I usually get up at the same time. We had no calls that night which was nice and unusual for us. As I said before in the first post we usually run about 3-7 calls on any given weekend night. I don’t mind being able to sleep, makes me more energetic during the day.
0635: I start the coffee maker and go to put up the flags for the day. I see that it’s snowing today so I don’t put the flags up as our flags are not “weather proof”. I don’t really know why we don’t buy weather proof flags, maybe their too expensive. I’ll have to look into that. Lastly, I put the dishes that were in the dishwasher from the night before away. By that time the coffee is done and I get a cup.
Snow in the morning.
0720: We got a new Assistant Chief the week before and he usually comes in early and goes to his office. Today, he came in the kitchen and spoke with my crew for a bit. My fire crew and I talk with him for a bit. We are having out probie (new) firefighters come in today for the first time so we can meet them.
0745: We all sit down and watch the news to see if there is anything we should know for the day, all with a coffee cup in our hand. As you’ll see thus usually doesn’t last too long.
0753: Our first call of the day. It’s a vehicle rollover. When we arrived nobody was in the car, it was actually kind of weird. The patient later came to the scene. She walked to a friends house after the accident. She was fine and had no complaints but we still recommended her go to the hospital. She didn’t want to go. We did not transport her to the hospital. Be careful on those icy roads, they’re dangerous.
0816: We leave the call to go back to the station.
0823: Arrive back to the station.
0847: It’s time to shower and shave. Because of the new guys coming in early today we decided not to workout.
0901: I start to make some food. Oatmeal for today. It’s what I usually eat in the mornings. It’s easy, fast, and we have some at every station.
0915: The new guys come in. They’re here for a week before their academy starts in the beginning of January. I start to talk with them and get a little background about all of them. I find out that most of our new guys have no fire experience whatsoever and just a couple of years as a paramedic. Not to mention it’s most of their first fire test they’ve taken! Good for them. We have a lot of fire training these next couple years. They seem like smart guys though, I’m sure they’ll do fine.
0946: I write the chart for the rollover call. If you didn’t read my first post a chart is a narrative for every medical call we go on.
1022: Finish my chart and go sit down at the dining room table. I start to work on this blog and talk with the probies a bit more. I only work on the blog a bit then I decide to help them get fitted for their turnouts (firefighter gear). I also get the idea of my first blog post from the new guys.
1109: My medic partner and I got to the store to get lunch. We only had to buy some supplies for a salad. The store is located just caddy-corner to our fire station. Doesn’t take long to go and come back.
1140: With all the new guys at the station we decided to order some pizza for lunch. BBQ chicken pizza…. Delicious!
1215: All of us eat pizza and salad together. We ask the new guys some more questions about where they came from, their experience, family and other questions. We learn a lot more about our new co-workers. As the guys finish their lunch the probie firefighters start to clean up for us. It’s nice to have new guys.
1309: The new guys leave and I do some work on my computer. My A-EMT (Advanced EMT) cert. is expiring in March next month so I had to recertify it online. We do training pretty consistently at work and those training hours translate to CE (continuing education) hours, which is what we need for our certifications like my A-EMT cert.
1338: We have been doing our yearly SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus) mask testing today and it was my turn. What we do is put on our firefighting mask on and have to do different maneuvers with it on ie: talk with it on, bend at the waist and touch our toes, move our head from left to right, stuff like that. To be honest, it’s all computerized and I don’t really know how the test works. I’m told I passed the test.
1349: I get time to finish recertifying my medical license.
1432: My medic partner is the one who is in charge of doing the SCBA testing for every individual in the department. He had to test some guys at another station so we drive to the other station to test them. The test takes about 5- 10 min. per person.
1514: We leave that station and go to the store to get dinner for the night.
1531: Arrive back to our station.
1534: Some downtime. I go back on my computer to do some studying/reading. I find this website that has some pretty interesting tips and tricks for firefighters. It’s called Vent enter search. I go on this site from time to time.
1604: Time to clean the station. We clean the station on our second day of our shift for the oncoming crew. We clean everything from the kitchen tops, bathrooms, dorm rooms, sweep, mop and vacuum.
1648: I Help cook dinner. To be honest, I don’t even remember what we ate.
1732: Me and my crew sit down at the dinner table to eat dinner together.
1804: Relaxing time on the recliners. I take this time to read a part of my book. I like to read, but often don’t get the chance to read at work. This was one of those rare occasions.
1921: I end up doing some more work on this blog. I was trying to figure out how to set up my newsletter and blog subscription. I didn’t even know they were different things. I had a hard time figuring it out. Finally found a good post about it here.
What I see when I work on my this blog at work.
2240: Brush teeth to go to sleep. I do my walk around the station as the night before where I make sure there are coffee grounds ready to go for the morning, load and start the dishwasher, and walk around the station to check that the doors are locked.
2250: Lay down to go to sleep. Another night without a call. Our district was being generous to us this shift.
0620: We get a call right before my alarm goes off. It’s a fire alarm that went off. We’re canceled before we even leave the station.
0640: Wash the vehicles and stock them for the coming on crew. We like to leave our rigs and station looking nice for the guys coming on. We start to clean up our rooms before we leave as well.
0730: Talk with the oncoming crew about the calls we had and any information they need to know about that happened on our shift. I also like to ask how was their “4-day” (the 4 days we get off in-between shifts). I get dressed in my regular clothes.
0805: Leave the station to go home.
There it is, exactly what I did for my 2 days. We are usually a slow department, but this was an especially slow day for us. Not too many charts for me to write (not that I mind). More posts about what I do as a firefighter will be on their way. If you read this post and haven’t read the first then click here to see it.
What do you think? Would you change anything? Like the layout? Let me know. I hope you enjoyed the post and if you have any questions, concerns, inputs, or idea then comment below.
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