Working as a firefighter

Author: Juan Serrano May 3, 2016

I have another installment of my “Day by Day” for you guys. The layout will be the same as the others have been. If you are new to my site I would first like to say thanks for coming and I hope you enjoy the read. What this post will be is a timeline of my day working as a firefighter.

I actually took some pictures for this post so it will be more visually interesting than some of the others.

The times were recorded at the best of my ability. HERE is the link for my previous post.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, my content will be as honest as I can but without giving too much information about the people we respond to so I don’t break any HIPAA violations.

I get the information from these post by writing down, throughout the day, what I do during the day while working as a firefighter.

Here is the second day of my 48 hr. shift. In my station, we run with an ambulance crew (which I’m on) and a fire engine with 2 personal on each rig.

Working as a firefighter

0630: I wake up. Our night was quite busy. We had 4 or 5 calls all night and it took a little time to wake up this morning. It was a cold morning was it snowed a little all night.

Outside my station that morning.

0635: I start the coffee machine, put up the flags in front of the station and put away the dishes in the dishwasher.

0655: After I get some coffee I do my “check out” of my ambulance for the morning. A check out is when I make sure all the gear on the ambulance is there and in the correct place.

0734: Time to make a small breakfast (toast with some butter). Gotta get something in my body after a long night.

0805: The crew sits down together for a meeting to talk about the plan for the day. We also take a look at any new memos that are out for that week.

0842: I take my pre-workout and start working out.

0936: Finish the workout and take a shower.

0951: Now time for the rest of the breakfast. I made some oatmeal and it was quite delicious.

1022: It was a Sunday today so my crew and I did our Sunday checks for the week. Though we go through our rigs every morning, the Sunday checks are a more in-depth checkout/cleaning of them. This usually takes at least 2-3 hours when done right. After the checks were done we did a little training

1142: Lunch prep time for the ambulance crew. We had to go to the store and get food. Just the ambulance crew went to the store. We’re eating brats today (I know not the healthiest of foods, but we cook what the captain wants) so it wasn’t anything fancy. Our new assistant chief decided to eat with us today.

1254: At this time the food was ready but our chief was awol. We sat around for a bit while we waited for him. When he showed up we all ate and talked about things around the district.

1327: Finish eating and clean up.

1342: I start to do a little studying on my computer. After I get a little studying done the chief asks us to wash his vehicle. My medic partner and I get right on it.

1413: I am the guy in our department that’s in charge of getting the supplies for all our stations and I needed to see how many supplies we had in our supply room. The supply room is located in a different station so we head to the other station.

1512: As were checking the supply room when we get a call for a patient who fell to the ground. We got to the call and saw it was an older man who had fallen on the snow and hurt his back. We put this patient on a backboard because of his back pain. He didn’t want any pain medications to be given to him. It was my call so I was in the back of the ambulance with him and we took him to the nearest hospital.

1534: We arrive at the hospital. When we arrive at the hospital we bring in the patient and give a pass down to the nurse. they sign our paperwork and we clean our ambulance.

1542: Leave the hospital and head to the station. While on the way to the station I write the chart for the call. A chart is something we do for every call we go on. It’s a legal written down documentation of the actions taken on the call. They usually take around 30 – 50 min.

1602: Arrive back to the station. Continue to finish my chart.

1658: I take down the flags in front of the station.

1704: It’s dinner prep time. Tonight we had fajita quesadillas. I help to cook and man they did look delicious.

1744: We get a call before dinner was finished. It was a call for an electrical emergency. A telephone wire broke because the weather was so bad. We went to the call (the ambulance crew and fire engine) because we make sure no fire is started and to keep people away from the danger. A call like this can last from 10 min. to 2 hours depending on when the electrical company arrives.

1832: Arrive back to the station. We sit down and eat our (now cold) food.

1909: Clean up our mess from eating.

1934: I continue to do some studying. I was in the process of learning how to be an engineer (The driver and pumper of the engine) so I had a lot of book work to work on.

2213: It’s time to go asleep. I put my computer away and go brush my teeth. Before I go to sleep I walk around the station and make sure all the doors are closed and locked, make sure the flags are down, and set up the coffee and dishwasher.

2231: Lay down and go to sleep.

0130: The tones wake us up. It’s a call for a structure fire. Now most of these calls are not a real fire but doesn’t mean we still don’t take it seriously.

0136: We arrive at the structure fire. We were the second station that arrived on scene. The roads were so icy that our ambulance couldn’t get up one of the back roads. We kept sliding so we just ended up parking a distance away and walked to the fire. My job at the fire was to pull a second backup line (hose) to the house. I went to the fire engine and pulled the line. Footing was difficult due to the icy/snowy weather.

0145: The fire was out. The other crew got to put it out. After the fire was out my job was to check the ceiling was clear of all fire. I got our pike pole tool and started poking holes into the ceiling.

A Pike Pole like the one I used

0222: The next task was to check the lower floor of the house. There was an eerie feeling being down there. It was full of light smoke and very dark.My partner and I noted that there was someone living on the lower floor and my partner and I started getting a little nervous that we would find a body. Thank goodness that we didn’t and everyone was already out of the house.

0251: The fire chief in charge of the fire declared the fire to be out and it was time for the crews to put away all the hose and everything else we used. Though it was still pretty early in the morning I don’t think anyone was tired, a fire really gets your blood pumping. As we were putting the hose away we realized that the couplings (the part of the hose that connects to each other) would not connect to each other because the water that was inside of them were frozen. We had to take the hose to our fire station to dry them out.

0330: We arrive back to the station and start drying the hose. We had some tools that needed cleaning and air bottles that needed filling. We did this while we waited for the hose to dry.

Drying out the hose

0427: We finish cleaning up and start to put all the hose away. There was just 4 of us so it took longer than usual.

0506: Finally back to sleep.

0705: And I’m up again. Not much sleep for us tonight. 0705 is actually sleeping in as well. 

0720: I get some coffee (a lot of coffee) and go to take a shower. 

0731: Get dressed and tell the oncoming crew what happened in our 2 days of working.

0803: I go home and go straight to sleep.

So there it is, what’s it like working as a firefighter. If you have looked at my past post on my shifts then you can see how different our days are from each other.

Something new every day, which I love. I hope you guys enjoyed this post and if you did then would you please SUBSCRIBE to my mailing list. You will be the first to know of any new products I have coming up and other tips from a firefighter.

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Thanks again for reading. Cheers!