About a third of the way up the 105-foot ladder leaned against the roof of a six-story tower, the legs begin to burn.
It’s not just the 40 degree angle or gravity pulling on you, it’s the additional 40 pounds of bunker gear and air tank that you have to wear for what’s probably waiting at the top. By the tenth step, it’s an effort to lift the giant boots to next rung.
At about halfway, I yelled back to my firefighter shadow, Jesse Mitchell of Valley Regional Fire Authority.
“OK, let’s make camp here and summit in the morning,” I said over my shoulder and heard Jesse chuckle.
But there’s no time and no place to rest. You have to push on.
The higher you get on the ladder, the wobblier it gets until the last third, reaching the final way to the ledge of the building, when the whole ladder seems to bounce and jiggle with every heavy step.
At the top, the smiling face of our instructor, a Captain from the Kennewick Fire Department, told me to kneel on the top rung and catch my breath.
“Look around,” he said. “Enjoy the view.”
Holding tight to the sides of the ladder, I breathed deep and looked around, taking in the entire Hammer Training Facility below me, with my fellow “probies” looking like ants on the ground below.
“Now remember,” said the Captain, handing me a 20-pound bar used to break through a roof. “That’s just the commute. The actual work starts now.”
The point of FireOps 101, an annual event sponsored by the International Association of Firefighters District 7, is to give policymakers and the occasional media member an idea of what the job is like for firefighters in hopes that they will remember when it comes budget time.
It is highly successful.
Each “probie,” or rookie candidate is put through the paces at a series of props stationed throughout the Volpentest HAMMER Training and Education Center in Richland, Wash. that simulate the type of events that firefighters face all the time.
There is a search and rescue through a smokey house with zero visibility, a car fire, a “megacode” CPR event, the ladder and roof cut simulator, a car extrication and, of course, the burn house, a fire-filled building that each probie has a chance to put out.
The difference, of course, is that each prop is given its own time and emphasis, when in the real world, a single call often contains multiple props, such as climbing the ladder 105 feet only to get to the smoke-filled maze, ending in the burn house.
It’s an intense eight-hour look into the lives of the men and women whose job it is to protect us from fire every day.And it is not easy.
I was invited to FireOps this year by the good folks at IAFF Local 1352, the union that staffs the Valley Regional Fire Authority in Auburn. They paid for my trip and my hotel while there.
My shadow, Jesse Mitchell, is a five-year veteran of the department and the union’s political liaison. He’s a fun, gregarious man who enjoys a good time and a good laugh, but when the call comes in – even a fake call like the ones I was answering – Mitchell is all business.
And for good reason; Every step – even in the controlled environment of a training site – is dangerous when dealing with fire.
Mitchell said for the most part, the day is similar to the training firefighters go through, though he admits it is rare that all of the events happen in a single shift, even if some do often come together.
But the hope is that by the end of the day, the policymaker or journalist has a better understanding of what it’s like to answer the call.
“We think they’ll make better political decisions if they’re informed,” Mitchell said.
The day begins early – too early for a journalist, really – with a safety briefing. On top of the usual messages about the danger of the job, our group got a special message on heat stress, due to expected temperatures near 100 degrees in Richland last week.
Inside the bunker gear, which not only keeps the heat out, but also traps it in, it gets much hotter. Toss in the stress of breathing through a mask, the work of dragging a hose or climbing a ladder and the sheer nerves of walking into a smoke and fire-filled building and it can be extremely hot and sweaty work.
Throughout the day, our blood pressure and pulse rate were monitored and we were encouraged to drink gallons of water as we made our way around the course.
We were each also provided with a water bottle complete with the FireOps slogan (“Feel the Heat”) and the three key components the union wanted to make sure we understood: Time critical, highly technical and labor intensive.
After the safety warnings, we were instructed to gear-up. Valley provided me with the gear, a pair of heavy rubber boots, bunker pants and coat, a hood and helmet, as well as a mask I had to have fitted and tested to make sure it fit properly. Then came the air tank strapped to my back.
It is not an easy thing to get together, especially quickly – another essential element of the job and they were sure to let us know.
“You are now two minutes past where a firefighter is supposed to be dressed at,” we were told as I struggled into the gear.
Our first prop was the search and rescue house. After checking our gear and securing our breathing masks, Jesse and I crawled into the house, which was filled with smoke.
With absolutely no way to see, I had to feel along the wall with my right hand and drag the hose with my left, all while crawling along the floor and then up the steps to the second floor. We crawled into a room and as I felt around, I found a dummy laying on a bunk. I passed the hose to Jesse, grabbed the dummy under the arms and followed him back down the stairs and out of the house.
The dummy could not have weighed more than 90 pounds, but that was enough. I knew right then, during the first event that I could not be a firefighter. I am in decent shape, but you still don’t want to rely on me to drag you out of a burning house.
After a quick rest and check of my vital signs, we headed into the “megacode” prop, designed to give us an idea of the amount of manpowwer needed during a CPR event.
New standards require firefighters to give constant chest compressions and studies have shown that effectiveness drops precipitously after two minutes, meaning someone has to be on hand to tag in and take over. At 100 compressions per minute, the arms tire fast and two minutes is not enough recovery time to be effective after a few shifts.
We continued CPR as we loaded the dummy on to a back board, strapped it down and then carried it down the stairs to a waiting ambulance. We climbed in with the backboard and then got a chance to see how difficult it was to continue CPR in the back of a bouncing, moving ambulance on its simulated way to the hospital.
Throughout the CPR prop, the firefighters pushed the need for more personnel and explained that the exhaustion is why so many firefighters and emergency personnel are needed on the site of a seemingly simple event.
After another quick break, my team, one of six spread across the facility, headed over to the car fire prop. It was our first chance to handle a hose and get up close and personal with fire.
We took turns using the hose or the hook to open the trunk, doors and hood to allow the fire to be sprayed.
Again we were reminded that in the real world, the car is rarely sitting on a gravel pad by itself and the latches on the trunk and hood are never as easy to bypass as the non-latched version we battled. Also, in real life, the fire is uncontrolled and tires and nearly everything else in a modern car can explode.
But even with those real-world concerns aside, simply maneuvering the hose and pole while staying far enough away to not get burned – all while breathing through the mask – is not easy and takes teamwork.
From the car fire, we headed over to the ladder truck.
Stretching 105 feet up, the ladder presents its own unique challenges. As I stood at the bottom and waited my turn, I was not worried. As a kid, I was a climber. I climbed anything and everything: tress, ladders, buildings, water towers, it didn’t matter.
But wearing the gear and full pack, the climb is a lot more difficult. And bouncy.
By the time I reached the top, I was pretty tired. And again, “the work starts when we get to the roof,” we were told before starting up.
After having an opportunity to catch our breath, something firefighters can’t take time to do during an actual fire, I took the stairs back down and headed over to the roof simulator, where I was handed a rather heavy chainsaw and reminded that I would have had to bring this and other tools with me up the ladder while I climbed, before they let me cut through the simulated roof.
But even safely on the ground the chainsaw, used to cut a hole in the roof to vent heat, smoke and gas and allow firefighters on the ground to enter and begin battling the actual blaze is still heavy and difficult to use, especially to the unpracticed.
By the time we reached the burn house, fighting a fire felt like a reward. They lined us up with our shadow and team-by-team we crawled in and were confronted with thick smoke and fire spreading across the ceilingSomething funny happens in the brain as you are about to enter a room filled with fire: it boggles at the choice you’ve made and begs you to reconsider your sanity as it works to outmuscle your legs.
Nevermind that it’s a controlled, propane fire in a specially designed burn house or that you have a fully-charged firehose and a professional firefighter with you.
None of that matters as the door opens and rush of thick smoke envelops your breathing mask or as you catch a glimpse of the hot, orange tendrils racing across the ceiling above you hinting at a blaze you can almost see behind the smoke.
The mind recoils and the legs follow. It takes a conscious effort to put your personal safety at risk and charge into a burning room, even during a training burn.
On the floor, you glance up through the mask, listening to the Darth Vader-like sound of your own breathing getting heavier with every inch and feeling your pulse quicken. The flames are starting to spread through the house and despite the 40 pounds of protective gear, you can feel the heat on your face.
As you ease back the bale nozzle the hose kicks to life, pressing you down further as you aim it at the flames.
With the fire finally out, I closed the bale again and relaxed a bit until Jesse, my shadow, tapped me on the shoulder.
“Ok, good work. Now move on to the other room,” he said.
By this time, I was feeling the effects of the day. Our group of five had already lost one member to the heat and after the check of vitals following the burn house – which included a demonstration of just how difficult it is to use one of the high-pressure hoses on your own – we’d lose a few more.
But the job wasn’t done yet so I soldiered on to the final prop of the day: The Puyallup Extrication Team’s demonstration on getting victims out of a car wreck.
Sitting on a hot tarmac in full gear, we got all of our instructions and safety lesson and then the instructors, who go around the country and world demonstrating and teaching their techniques helped as we proceeded to use a jack to further open the back window of the car to get to the victim and use the saw-all and Jaws of Life to cut the roof off of a car.
The tools make the job easier, but they are heavy and bulky and after a tiring day in the 100-degree sun, not easy to use. Sometimes, the gear actually got in the way and affected my balance.
In my Converse and shorts, jumping on the hood of a car and balancing while I cut through a windshield would not be a problem, but the additional weight and the awkward size of the pants and boots made balance more difficult than I’d like to admit.
After we finished, we walked back to the air-conditioned meeting room. My heart rate was way out of whack and I was exhausted. I could barely eat and continued to sweat throughout the entire 45 minute “graduation” ceremony.
But I wasn’t the only one. Elected official after elected official struggled to pick up their helmet and certificate and nearly to a person promised to remember just how difficult their day was at budget time, especially the importance of manpower when it comes to saving a life.
“Labor intensive,” indeed.
Later, after a shower and dinner, I asked some of the real firefighters how the day compared to the real thing.
Mike Westland of East Pierce Fire and Rescue said the day was “fairly accurate,” but added “they make it easier” than real training or a real emergency For example, every situation of the day was a perfect training simulation, without families, furniture or other distractions and dangers.
On top of that, apparently the smoke created by the propane is “candy smoke” compared to the real thing.
I hadn’t noticed as I couldn’t really see through it anyway, but apparently, a real fire is even darker, smokier and hotter than the propane fires we faced.”Real smoke at a real fire is very deadly,” Westland said.
East Pierce brought with them Rep. Cathy Dahlquist, who was not in my group, but also apparently survived the day.
“She did good,” Westland said, adding that the main idea is to give folks who make the budget an idea of what the job entails.
“Our goal is to give them an inside look at what we do,” he said.
At East Pierce, Westland said, the other issue is staffing. east Pierce Fire and Rescue has a large territory to cover and partially because of that, each truck is staffed with two firefighters instead of three. Additional staffing is sent out as the call requires, but in the case of a structure fire, or the heavily-labor intense job of providing constant CPR, the lack of a third crew member might be critical.
Let there be no doubt: Firefighting is difficult work. It is, in fact, “labor intensive,” “highly technical” and “time sensitive.”
At the day’s end I was hot, exhausted, hungry and my knees were bruised from crawling around all day.
But I’d received my helmet and certificate and was very proud of completing the day, especially in the intense Eastern Washington heat.
And I can honestly say I have a new respect for the men and women of our local fire departments and I no longer have that schoolboy desire to be a fireman.
That’s work for professionals. Never doubt it.
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