Special Interview: Firefighter (Part 2)

Here is the conclusion of Bill’s interview about his experience as a firefighter.

“The group of us are in full gear, helmets on, SCBA tanks on our backs, masks dangling from our necks, hands full of tools and hose packs. We walk past a plate glass window, I see our reflection: it changed my life.”

WBS: I've heard of some pretty epic pranks that get played around a firehall. Do you have any favourites that you helped to set up - or had played on you by others?

Bill: Pranks, risky to talk about, now anyway. I was lucky to be part of the CFD when selfless was more important than self. I know some of the things we did to each other, said to each other, would have the outside world, especially the present outside world, demanding our dismissal.

I treasure some of these experiences, especially some of the ones that happened to me. I talked about some of the ones that happened in the “Downtime” question. I could add that some of the pranks were inter-agency as well, and as with Firefighters in a hall, it built team with Police and Paramedics. I was in a running battle of practical jokes with a Medic, offering each other surprises and discomfort, at a time when City Council had made some terrible choices, that led the Medics to being unhappy, that led to unhappiness in Halls that had ambulances. The Fire Crew I was on was both chagrined and entertained by our antics but without intending, it dissipated the tensions of outside bureaucracy in a Shared Agency building. As our jokes got wilder, it suddenly ended, when my Medic friend found my end: I woke to my first day off to find my car in the parking lot painted a beautiful pastel purple. He had really put in some great work. The Crew loved it, and a trip to the car wash turned the car silver again, but it elevated all of us to be unified in a divisive time.

Inter Fire Hall rivalry built team in each Hall and built team on the Fire Ground during Multiple-Alarm fires. To be in a Fire Hall after all the Rigs have gone out, especially in Hall with multiple Rigs, is comedic. The Apparatus Floor is empty, except for all the pairs of shoes, abandoned where they were dropped when Firefighters responded, stepping into their Hitches, (Duty gear pants and boots). While we were out dealing with a Dumpster fire, another crew had passed by our Fire Hall, gone in and gathered all the shoes and boots, and painstakingly tied all the laces together with countless, tight knots: the ball of footwear resembled a meteor in size and weight, sitting on the apparatus floor, when we returned to our Hall. The creativity of some practical jokes gave pause to wonder just before you set to work getting your life back in order.

In my 1st Firehall, fresh out of Drill School, I was quiet, hardworking, always looking for something to do. I was wide-eyed and learning, but quietly, watching: seeing a 30-year Captain perform “magic” on a Fire Ground as he gathered a fun, joking group into a sleek, intuitive team when it really mattered. I would one day get to do this job; I would remember that Captain and model my Fire Hall after his. But as his Rookie, I was quiet, watching, without an inkling of how closely I was being watched. In the Hall, and on Calls, you got to see so many different ways people live, different lifestyles. One of the cultures of this hall was the amount of milk they drank at meals. So many milk cartons were generated each meal. Eventually I asked if it was ok for me to wash them out, take them home, explaining that my Northern Manitoba family fished a lot, stored a lot of fish in ice, in frozen milk cartons and then we would eat fish months after our Manitoba trip fishing and to an Indigenous lake fishery. “Sure, go ahead,” after they heard my story. Merrily I collected milk cartons. After I left that Hall for my second posting, same District, new crew, I put my lessons at the 1st Hall into action, built on them and kept on learning, I had not forgotten: neither had they. After a really tough House Fire one night at my new hall, tired, wet, dirty, we put our apparatus back into service: clean hoses, clean SCBA, repaired equipment, gear washed off. The crew from my 1st Hall had been covering our District while we were at our House Fire, and now that we were ready again, they went back to their Hall. I was the Rookie, I worked longer, fussing over details, but still had a chance to grab an hour or two of sleep. Dorm lights were off, moving through the dark because you don’t turn on a light, I found my bed. Dorm still quiet, I hadn’t woken anyone, I laid down. The Firefighters from my 1st Hall had done more than cover our District, my bed was not “my bed,” but a pallet of milk cartons with my sheets and blanket perfectly made. It collapsed, they had not bothered to rinse the cartons, the dorm lights came on and I was surrounded by the laughing faces of my new crew as I lay in a reeking wet pile of sheets and sour milk. They helped me up, someone took my bedding to a washer, we all got up, drank coffee in the kitchen and talked, we talked about a loss at our House Fire, was I okay with finding and helping get someone out. They made it okay.

I watched a Captain who had two high-functioning, wound up young Firefighters going at each other, each thinking they were all that. This Captain was a veteran of Firehall hijinks and set them on each other with his own idea of “here’s a way you can get him,” an idea he shared with both. Each then proceeded to find a way to get the other out of their homes during their days off and over multiple trips with many kilos of lawn fertilizer, treated each other’s grass to near lethal nitrogen doses. They each spent the balance of the summer cutting their grass, one of them commenting that at night, with the window open, he could, “actually hear his grass growing.” When they each learned that they had gotten each other, the one young Firefighter thought the Captain might need to be “gotten back.”

“I always thought if I could draw, it would be a cartoon of a group of people, taller than the crowd seething all around them, and they look across at each other, their eyes meeting, calm, together, while surrounded by mayhem. ”

Working out in a Fire Hall is important. The obvious fitness at a Call and when I was on the job, an Annual Assessment at Wellness. Often we worked out as a group. The two players in this little drama, the Captain and his grass growing Firefighter, were working out with everyone else in a Hall with lots of Firefighters. The young guy brought in a Fish Oil, advertised to not taste fishy, but the amount he put in the Captains water bottle was going to cause intestinal distress. Someone saw the “poisoning” and surreptitiously, the Captain changed his water, and with a great show, downed it in front of the Firefighter, who thought he had really done it. The Captain left the Hall early, having his replacement come in early, and asked that before shift change, they let the young Firefighter know that someone riding their bike in had seen the Captain beside the bike path, doubled over in agony. Now the young Firefighter is worried, did he take it too far, especially when they convince him he may have put mineral oil, something used in bicycle brakes, and not his Fish Oil. That night, he searched for the effects of mineral oil poisoning, he may have called Poison Control. The Captain had the next shift off, his 1st night, and so when the Captain does not come to work, the young Firefighter immediately worries, calls the Captain at home, and is told by Captain’s spouse, “No, he’s in the Foothills, we’re not sure what is wrong with him.” The Crew is watching this internal melt-down slowly take place, the young Firefighter is in anguish. There is a page over the intercom, “All Firefighters to the kitchen.” The kitchen becomes his confessional. The young Firefighter pours out his heart about how he has poisoned the Captain, “We should call the Foothills.” He is let off the hook by the crew, told the Captain is okay, just has this shift off: the eyes show it all, the shock, the relief, the appreciation of how elegant the plan was, and then embarrassment. As always it’s followed by being enveloped by a Crew, commiseration and accolades, being a part of something the transcends day to day life, having a faith in those around you to be so close to powerful emotions that we don’t share easily with others. I have told this story to others, they reacted with horror, that this was pure bullying, and I see their side of that interpretation.

Pranks, they are risky to talk about, especially in the time I find myself in.

I guess that world that I was a part of, and the pranks we played on each other, come down to the intent and the aftermath: there is no malice, no cruelty, and person who has been “got” is embraced, enveloped in a safety net. Peers who get used watching each other for cracks, for damage, knowing from experience what another’s stress really looks like on them, some of that knowledge comes from these practical jokes. I always thought if I could draw, it would be a cartoon of a group of people, taller than the crowd seething all around them, and they look across at each other, their eyes meeting, calm, together, while surrounded by mayhem. I failed to impart this subtlety, this sentiment, to the person who accused us of being bullies, childish. Perhaps what I have had the opportunity to live in is not easily described by me, to someone who has not been able to experience this belonging.  

WBS: Do you have special training days throughout the year? I remember driving past a firehall and seeing a truck with the ladder up in the parking lot - I think they were doing a training exercise?

Bill: There were Weekly Apparatus checks where all the Rigs go out on to The Tarmac, and their equipment is fired up and kept ready. Part of that is Aerials are put up, Engines pump water, “jaws of life” may crush a bike helmet from Goodwill that looks exactly like yours. As well there are Evaluations, Spring and Fall, where we would go as a group of Firehalls from our area of The City, into live fires at Training: to find a heavy plastic mannequin, to find a downed Firefighter, to refine our Ventilation expertise: to remind us how hard this job was and why we drill and workout. Training was all forms, from scheduled evaluations, monthly required and mandated drills and our own invented impromptu sessions of how to do things better. During Station Tours, visits from school groups, club groups, The Crew would fire up equipment and dress volunteers up in Firefighting gear, to crawl around for their tour group. It showed them all how equipment worked, what a Firefighter looked like in full gear: by seeing one of their own looking and sounding alien, maybe they would not hide under a smoky bed out of fear of what they might see while we’re looking in at them. Mostly Tours enjoyed the “jaws-of-life” and their teacher dressed up in 50lbs of gear.

WBS: What was it like being a captain? What are some of the responsibilities that fall to you in that role?

Bill: Captain is the first rank where you are truly a manager. The rank structure of the CFD is based on military ranks, but, and a big but, it is not military. We hang out together, we are equals in a sense, but there has to be a rank structure, someone has to make a final decision, everyone has to know that there is a final decision for an action plan to move forward, and someone has to be responsible/culpable for that final decision. I based my life as a Fire Captain on every Fire Captain I had worked with: great ones had lessons and bad ones too. I tried to create a Fire Hall that I would have thrived in as a young Firefighter, to protect everyone in my care. As a Station Captain, you become responsible for the positive growth of your crew, meeting the goals of your District and to your District Chief, as well to liaise with the other Station Captains on the other Shifts in that Fire Hall. Middle manager could be described as the role you take on as Captain. With that comes a change from just Hanging Out, it’s subtle, but there is: a Fire Crew will automatically accord you the respect that goes with that rank, you now have one of the jobs that has to be done “right” in a Fire Hall.

Central to your job as a Firefighter, now more so as a Fire Captain, is your commitment to the people that you work for, the citizens of The City of Calgary. In both roles, the people have put their trust in you, provided you with a wage and really good equipment and in exchange you accept their expectations and hopes that you will protect them, save them. Being a Fire Captain is to occupy a position of trust. So like the rest of your career of self-evaluation and self-improvement, that needs to continue, there is never a point where you can say “I’ve arrived,” and then relax. The job means that you live in the world of “what if,” the world you see is not the world everyone else lives comfortably in, something is going to happen. It could go like this: on a warm summer’s eve, after a nice meal, you could hear the tones, hear Dispatch say that they’ve had multiple calls on this, you arrive and have 20% of the information you need, then you deploy four dozen Firefighters and their Apparatus, into an event that could kill one of your people, this event will end up costing someone millions of dollars. That’s the best part of being a Captain, and the worst. But, it changes how you look at a warm summer’s eve and nice meal.

WBS: Best and worst part about being a firefighter - in your opinion.

Bill: I will share the worst part of being a Firefighter first. The worst, my career is over. I can console myself that I got to live that life but I miss it deeply. I know I cannot live that way again, or at least I do not see how to get back to what I had, how to be a part of something that is bigger than me and makes me bigger that I can be on my own. The worst part of being a Firefighter is retiring and after 30 years, having a part of you go back to sleep, after it has been awake.

“I got to become something that I could never have accomplished on my own. I got to live within an altruistic team that looked after me, made me feel safe so that I could give it my very best. I became someone who was given an opportunity to change the world, and though no one would ever know the depth of the moments and deeds of my career, I knew how elevated my contribution was compared to what life would have been without this job.”

The best part of being a Firefighter: I hope this is not too esoteric. I choose to share a snapshot that I carried in my mind through my career. I was working downtown, going into another false alarm, so we were just there to verify a high-rise being safe before we reset the alarm. The group of us are in full gear, helmets on, SCBA tanks on our backs, masks dangling from our necks, hands full of tools and hose packs. We walk past a plate glass window, I see our reflection: it changed my life. What I see is a group of elite, professional Firefighters, geared up, ready, and me. In that moment of discord between how I felt inside and where I was now, I saw and felt how my life changed and how I changed.  The best part of being a Firefighter is that I got to be there, I got to become a better version of myself, I became someone that belonged there, I got to contribute to the lives of every person I was on a team with, I got to be part of something that amplified every good thing I did, or could do, to make the world around me a better place. When I gave something from myself to the world, it was made bigger, better, because of the team I was a part of.  I got to become something that I could never have accomplished on my own. I got to live within an altruistic team that looked after me, made me feel safe so that I could give it my very best. I became someone who was given an opportunity to change the world, and though no one would ever know the depth of the moments and deeds of my career, I knew how elevated my contribution was compared to what life would have been without this job. I got to live a 100% life: on this job, in those moments of consequence, 100% of me, mentally and physically, was available to give, and I could. In a world where I had only ever known, at best, 50% of what I was capable of. Being at work as a Firefighter was getting to live life, awake.