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Photo by Mic Smith
Camaraderie
David Malone, SLFD’s assistant chief, high fives Parham as a vote of confidence as she makes her way toward the burn building. Rusty Owens (left), district chief at SLFD’s Cades station, and Jordan Morris (right), a lieutenant at the Cades station, are among the volunteers offering guidance and support.
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Photo by Mic Smith
Hot walk
Under careful supervision from experienced South Lynches Fire Department firefighters, Diane Veto Parham participates in a live-burn drill.
The burn building South Lynches Fire Department in Lake City uses for training is impressive—four stories high on one end, so firefighters can practice rappelling down the exterior; an interior maze of rooms of varying shapes and heights; lots of stairs; computerized sensors to monitor temperatures. And, wow, does it smell smoky in there.
I toured it in street clothes, with doors and windows open to let sunlight in, and no fire burning inside. Then SLFD Chief Robbie Steele offered to let me walk through a live-burn drill—an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
First, I had to suit up. Firefighters do this very quickly. I may have set a new record for slow.
Bunker gear goes on from the feet up. Boots start out tucked inside the pants legs, so you can climb into both in one motion. (Except it takes me three tries to get it right.) The hefty boots make my feet feel leaden.
Next, hike up the pants, pull suspenders over the shoulders, and tighten the straps. If this were my own personal gear, I’d already have the straps sized to fit my body, saving precious seconds. But I’m borrowing the chief’s gear, so a team of helpful firefighters encircles me, tightening, tugging and straightening from every angle.
On goes the weighty overcoat, zipped and Velcroed shut. A knit flash hood wraps over my head to protect my neck, ears and face. I feel like a 4-year-old being bundled to go play in the snow. There’s a satisfying sense of protection inside these layers. On the other hand, this is August, and it’s pretty toasty inside this outfit. And I’m nowhere near the fire yet.
Somebody hooks a 40-pound air pack on my back. Straps wrap over my shoulders and around my torso. “Do a little hop,” my coaches tell me, to shift the pack up higher on my back, so it doesn’t drag me down backwards. The air mask clamps over my face—a little claustrophobic. Suddenly, my air pack starts beeping. If a firefighter is motionless for 30 seconds, the air pack emits high-pitched beeps to alert his partners that he may be in trouble. Jiggle the air regulator every few seconds if you’re standing still, they tell me.
My dressers help me pull my gloves on—how does anybody do this in two minutes? Somebody tops me off with a helmet—the chief’s helmet, no less.
“Get ready to go,” Steele signals me. Walk in all this stuff? I feel slow and awkward. If I had to, I could make a clunky escape. Meanwhile, firefighters haul hoses, wield axes, lift victims, climb ladders and crawl through tight spaces dressed like this.
As I lumber toward the burn building, assistant chief David Malone high fives me—just like a hero. Suddenly, I catch the thrill of the moment, the sense of adventure. Firefighters love the battle, Steele tells me. “You’ll see them come out of a fire, soaking wet, whip their masks off. They’ll high five each other and talk about, boy, that was hot, and what happened in there,” he says. “They like the challenge.”
Stepping into the dark building, I check to make sure my firefighter chaperones surround me. I jiggle that air regulator like crazy, although the beeps are kind of comforting.
A wave of heat assaults me the moment I enter. This is just a small, controlled fire; what must a real structure fire feel like? Smoke blocks my vision as we inch toward the fire—burning bales of straw, which are safely confined inside a cage. With each step, the heat grows more intense.
Could I do this for real? Hours of training, the spur-of-the-moment response to emergency, the courage? I don’t know if it’s in me. I am keenly aware of all the safety measures allowing me to be here—and how, in a real fire, firefighters have so little control over their environment, relying entirely on each other and their training to come out safely.
As we exit, a firefighter who was overcome by heat is being tended by EMTs. Even in a drill, the dangers are real.
They say you understand a man only after you’ve walked in his shoes. Wearing a firefighter’s boots and walking into a burning building gave me just a glimpse inside the world of emergency responders and a new appreciation for the courage and commitment of our state’s volunteer firefighters.
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