First Post, First Year of Firefighting

Well, I wasn't going to blog here since I am always behind on my other blogs. However, this seems the best spot to blog about fighting fires.

I guess since this is my first post, I will give a little info about me. I joined the rural fire department here in Jamestown 2 months ago. I had been talking about it for a couple of years with a buddy who was on. Well the chance came up, so I got voted on as an apprentice firefighter.

In the past couple of months, we have gotten pages for a couple of grass fires, a wheat field (60-80 acres), and this weekend a structure fire. The structure fire we had this past weekend really made me realize just why I have always had an itch to be a fireman. It was heartbreaking to see a family loose their home, yet being there doing everything we could to control the situation and prevent the incident from spreading really brought it home for me.

I am now working twice as hard to get through the FF1 material. Not that I wasn't before, however it just showed me that in this job, you never really know what you will get when the pager goes off. Every little bit of knowledge I can know beforehand will not only help with the test when I take it, but will help not just me, but the guys I am working side by side with.

So all in all, I am still about as new of a firefighter as they come, but in the past couple of months I have learned what a rare breed of people do this and have become proud to stand next to them.