I was in Nevada last summer visiting some fellow firefighters. We did the customary fire station tour and I met their Operations Chief. We chatted about the differences in fire departments throughout the region. I told him a little about our area and that I was with a rural fire department near Rapid City. He asked how many calls we did in a year and I answered with “right around 100, we’re just a volunteer department.” He looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “Just a volunteer department?”
At the time, it didn’t mean much to me, but then I started thinking about my response. Why are we just a volunteer department? When people introduce me as a “firefighter,” I usually follow it with the same statement: “I’m just a volunteer.” Why is that? Am I being modest? Well, very few firefighters I know are modest, so I ruled that out right away. Am I ashamed to be a firefighter? No, it’s just the opposite. So what is the deal?
I started looking at our training and the time volunteers put into the fire department. Most volunteers spend nearly five hours a week at the fire station, which may not sound like much, but that is in addition to the 40-some hours worked during the week and spending time with family and friends; going to concerts and ball games, picking up groceries, cooking dinner. Between business meetings, trainings, calls, other meetings, going to classes, and the time spent at the station, one would assume we get paid to do what we do. But, we don’t. So why is it that we are just volunteers?
The majority of the country is protected by volunteers, which is evident in South Dakota. We leave dinner with our family to go take a sick neighbor to the hospital; miss a birthday party to go fight a fire in the next county; spend Christmas in a blizzard rescuing people who ignored the road closures. We also use our weekends to take classes to further our knowledge and better ourselves as firefighters. Our training is top notch; we go through the South Dakota Certified Firefighter Course, complete NWCG wildland classes and task books, take National Fire Academy classes, and we travel around the state going to district fire schools.
We wear our department “colors” with pride (aka, jackets, shirts, hats), drive our trucks in parades, support local community events, and have open houses where we let kids climb in our trucks and turn on the lights. We defend our neighboring department when someone says it took them 20 minutes to get on scene. Most importantly, we stand beside what we believe in. Not in front of it, not behind it, but beside it. Whatever it is that drives us to do what we do – we stand beside it; because it is what makes us not a volunteer, but a firefighter. It is what makes us a team, provides that common link between all firefighters – regardless of your colors, your status, or your position on the department. When we respond to emergencies as firefighters, not just as volunteers. People do not care what you are called, as long as you are there to help them get through their emergency. Firefighters are a public icon – heroes in the American world. So, next time someone introduces me as a firefighter, I will respond with a smile, and proudly say “Yes, I am a firefighter.”
As the saying goes…fire does not care if your truck is red or yellow, if you are male or female, if you are career or volunteer. It’s how you fight the battle that determines victory in the war.
No comments:
Post a Comment