how much fire have you fought, and how hot does it feel inside the suit while fighting fire?
I’ve been a wildland firefighter for twenty seven years, and an urban firefighter now for about 1 year. Both can get hot to the point of discomfort, but it’s better than the alternative. The wildland clothing is designed to protect you from radiant heat while allowing body heat to escape, and the structural gear to basically encapsulate you, trapping in your body heat, but keeping out the hot gasses and radiant heat around you.
A big wildfire will put out the equivalent of 20000 single bar radiators per meter. A compartment fire at the point of flashover can be up to 600 degrees C.
You don’t really want to be in either of those situations, even with the right clothing.
Is it fun or annoying when people bring their kids into the station to see the trucks?
Not if it’s on an open day. Otherwise the station is often locked up.
The fascination kids have with fire trucks is actually quite magical. They go into a kind of overload if you let them hold a hose and spray some water.
Was being a firefighter a long-term goal that you worked towards, or did you stumble into it, or…?
It fit with my love of adventure, but for quite a while it was on a volunteer basis, so it was also kind of a hobby. From there I’ve realized it’s a good career.
Congrats on making a big jump from wildland to the structure side after so many years.
Not sure where you are at location wise, but how was your probation with having that much life experience behind you?
Excellent question. It was a little challenging in that people assumed I knew nothing and I assumed I knew more than I did. It all worked out well in the end though, partly because I’m happy to be a grunt on the end of a hose again.
When facing a fire, do you have a momentary pause where you think “I may not make it out of this”? How do you overcome such fear and fight fires with such bravery?
My life is boring in comparison and I can’t imagine how it feels to put yourself in these situations time after time. I’m very grateful that you do.
We are trained to read the conditions, control the conditions and to treat firefighter safety as the number 1 priority. Adrenaline and urgency don’t really give you space to stand around and think up fears. You just follow your training when you need to act. When you don’t need to act it’s all safe and you crack jokes with other firefighters.
There was only really one oh-fuck moment that I remember. It was during a backburn. The dozer had pushed some big trees to the fire side of the trail and when we it it up the fire got really big. I was outside the truck the radiant heat started burning my face. I sort of went into a huddle on my haunches, put my collar up (we have really big collars), my visor down and after a minute or two, hightailed it to the safety of a truck.
Do you have any fires that stand out in your memory? Take this as your open ended question to share any stories you want an excuse to tell.
I’m in Australia and Black Summer (September 2019 to Jan 2020) was horrific. The scale and intensity of the devastation was completely unprecedented.
It was a time of enormous stress for everyone. The entire eastern half of Australia which is roughly equivalent in size to the area from Florida to the Canadian border was blanketed in smoke and whole towns were destroyed. Over 10 million hectares of bush burned. It is estimated that over 3 billion animals were killed or displaced.
The only thing on the news was the fires, and everyone was constantly glued to the apps which told them where the fires were as they watched the fires get bigger and bigger and closer to their homes every day. Carbon monoxide exposure has been linked to depression and I personally believe that part of the reason we have a mental health crisis at the moment is due to that fire season.
Fires were burning through rain-forest gullies that normally are too wet to burn. Once rain-forest burns, it takes hundreds of years for it to return to a rain-forest ecosystem as the plants are not fire adapted. Whole species have been pushed to the verge of extinction by the destruction of their habitat.
Those fires were when I decided I no longer had any time for climate change deniers. Shit’s got real now.
I remember early in 2020 talking about the bush fires and thinking that it was a crazy way to start the year. Little did we know then what a year it would be…
Thanks for sharing!
Im guessing *.ca means Canada. If so, is the plan to still let everything keep burning?
