r/Firefighting • u/DarthJellyFish • Jun 30 '24
Volunteer / Combination / Paid on Call Shoutout to the volly’s
Just a shoutout to you guys that volunteer. I work for a full time city department in the Pacific Northwest. My uncle is an HVAC guy in a one stoplight town in southern Utah. He started volunteering about 8 years ago. I came down to see him and family this week. Checked out the rigs and got to talk about how they do things. You volunteers have to do a lot with a little and it’s truly impressive. Nothing but respect.
The pic is of their reserve rig. Such a cool old truck. The frontline unit is a little newer ;)
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u/Jodie_fosters_beard Jul 01 '24
Showed up to a fire at a mutual aid town the other week and about 1/2 mile from the fire our old ass rig blew a coolant line. We showed up to the fire in a cloud of steam and the IC turned to our captain getting off the truck and says "Should we put you guys out first or second?".
Working with 3rd hand equipment sucks but in a town of 500ish people theres not a whole lot of tax base to pull 500k from. We show up, work hard, and try and learn as best we can. Honestly, the biggest problem is the farthest point in our district is 20+ minutes from the station so if your shit is on fire out there you can sit down and watch a whole TV show before we show up.
During BEFO training it was kinda a joke when we discussed forcible entry for two reasons. One, the door will always be unlocked, and 2 there wont be much of a house left by the time we get there.