YAKIMA, Wash.- Around 70 pounds of gear in up to 1500 degrees is often overwhelming for an average person. For firefighters, that’s normal.
Flame retardant jackets, pants, boots, gloves and boots are required before going into a fire, as well as an air tank weighing around 40 pounds. When the call for an emergency comes in, firefighters need to be dressed and loaded within 60 seconds.
It took me about 10 minutes to manage the clunky gear before I was ready to fight fires in my day of training with the West Valley Fire Department.
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Johnston walked me through the ins and outs of gearing up and walking into a fire.
THE GEAR
WVFD wasn’t kidding when it said firefighters wear 70 pounds of gear. After taking off the helmet, air tank and jacket, I felt like I was back in high school leaving football practice.
The gear starts with the mask. A self-contained breathing apparatus that is required to be checked annually. The mask is connected to a machine reading the air filtration differences inside and outside the mask.
It reads the particulates in the air and what is being breathed in. In my test, I saw the number in the air reading in the thousands. Inside the mask was reading less than 10.
The mask is dependent on the user. A small physical test is preformed while hooked up to the machine. It tests air quality in positions firefighters could find themselves in, such as bending at the waist, jogging, looking side to side and up and down.
Each piece is tested once a year to ensure a proper fit, as the mask is connected to a 40-pound air tank to provide firefighters breathable air in a fire.
With the jackets, tanks, helmets and all the other necessary gear, at times I waddled like a penguin trying to get from Point A to Point B. While it seemed like a challenge for me, the firefighters who wear them daily only see it as their work uniform.
“People will say we’re heroes,” says Deputy Chief Johnston. “I don’t see it that way. I see it as that’s our job. That’s what we do. We didn’t sign up to be a hero, we signed up to do a job.”
FIGHTING THE FIRE
Luckily, WVFD didn’t have me follow them to any legitimate fire calls. Instead, a burn trailer used for training was set up to simulate a kitchen fire.
Using just propane, the trailer fire starts at a stove and can spread over the ceiling and onto a prop couch.
WVFD showed me the ropes beforehand of using the hose to be ready for the trailer. Firefighters often use the hose in tandem with another member of the crew.
One aims and controls the flow of the water, while the other supports their back and counteracts the pushback of the water pressure. When I aimed to the right, Deputy Chief Johnston would move the hose left to control the hose.
Inside the trailer, another firefighter guided me through to put out the fire and showed me that crews often work closer to the ground.
Most of the heat from the fire is trapped at the top of a room. Taking my gloves off in the trailer, I saw the heat of the air raise dramatically around three feet up from the ground.
Even just kneeling with the fire burning in the same room, my shoulders and top of my head were hotter than my legs, even through the helmet and protective gear.
In the trailer, I saw how a fire can attacked from different angles, and how the attack can vary. My partner went ahead of me and knocked her fire out in less than a minute. She told me she aimed right at the source and killed the fire almost immediately.
Wanting the full experience, I carefully aimed the hose on my turn. Hitting the fire in spurts allowed it to die down and pick back up. When it picked back up, the firefighters said the fire at the top of the ceiling was called a flashover, and that is their main target to keep the fire from spreading.
I was told if the fire gets behind you through the flashover, the entire structure is threatened instead of just the one room.
While my training only lasted a day, WVFD says the process to get to the burn trailer can be a slow one.
“Brand new to very proficient, it takes a while,” says Deputy Chief Johnston. “It takes at least a couple years. It’s nothing that’s going to happen overnight.”
Johnston says his full-time staff is committed to their roles. They train every day to handle the heat and weight of their gear and duties. They know the responsibilities the job entails, but that’s one of their favorite parts of working in a fire department.
“Just getting to help people,” says the Deputy Chief. “Going to see the outcomes. Sometimes, it’s not a good outcome but sometimes it’s a very good outcome. It’s the self-gratification of being able to help somebody when they are having one of the worst days possible.”
While I may not be cut out for the duties of a firefighter, WVFD is a volunteer heavy department, with only a handful of full-time staff. Deputy Chief Johnston says there are multiple stations in need of firefighters as soon as possible, with some stations seeing multiple crew members nearing retirement.
“There is no greater time than the present to be a firefighter,” says Johnston. “There are so many open doors, open jobs in the fire service industry right now.”
While applications are due on November 30, they are accepted year-round ahead of the next recruitment cycle ending in May.
