Posts Tagged ‘firefighting’ | Next Page ⇒  

It is a privilege to be counted among the tens of thousands who have served as volunteer firefighters.  And although I will be many states away when it happens, my heart will be in Wisconsin Rapids (city of my birth) on June 19 (this coming Saturday) for the dedication of the Wisconsin State Firefighters Memorial.  Facebook link and info here.

Remember a little while back I said I got to fight a wildfire with my old NAAFD crew (and the DNR rangers, and the Weyerhaeuser crew) when I was up north?  Just got some aerial photos of the fire, taken after we had the upper hand.  I was working up around the outer edge of the smaller lobe.  Foam, mostly, but also spent some time lugging a backcan (backbag, actually).

I’m taking a week to just hang out with my family.  We’re not going anywhere exotic, in fact most days we’re just knockin’ around the farm.  But posts for this week may or may not reflect reality or current events, as I’ve set them up to publish themselves so I can be off splitting firewood or toasting marshmallows or re-inventing myself as the Chicken Whisperer.

We interrupt this vacation to say: the coolest thing on my vacation so far?  Was up visiting my folks when a page went out for a forest fire just down the road.  They were looking for all the help they could get, so I got to suit up and put the backpack can on and attack from the black with all my old NAAFD friends.  Good to see y’all, y’sweaty, smoky, smelly bunch!

Quite a bit of first responder training lately*, and even a call or two.  With every year (20 of’em now, if my math is right), I grow more grateful that I wandered into the firefighting/EMS world.  I cherish the camaraderie, I cherish the shared language, I cherish the action, I cherish the privilege of being able to get in there and do our best to help, and above all I love how carrying a pager keeps me centered on the idea that each and every one of us is a mortal vulnerable being, so breathe deep…

*Yes, I hear you, you blue-shirted wisenheimers chuckling about me showing up at the wrong class in the wrong place…(inside joke).

I can see it from my hotel window.  Can’t see all of it, or a name on it.  But it’s one of ours.  Flying out here to Virginia, especially during the layover in St. Louis, I was surrounded by servicepeople in cammies.  A corporeal reminder of what others give while we are off shopping, as it were.

Will be shooting the breeze with paramedics, EMTs, first responders and firefighters tonight.  Home, sweet home, no matter where yer at.  Tip of the cap to my NAAFD crew, and to the Emergicare bunch.  Home soon, pager back on.