My local Volunteer Fire deprtment

is incredible. 

Volunteer Fire departments range anywhere between being as professional as their paid counterparts down to an untrained clumsy rabble. Sometimes referred to as 'a Volly' by their paid counterparts, I just discovered the hard way our locals are very well trained professionals.

I recently suffered a fire in the garage and the local departments got there quickly and managed to contain the fire to the garage. While I certainly had the rest of the house suffer varying degrees of smoke damage, the actual fire damage was restricted to the garage.

After action report.

I was out of town when I got the word and basically jumped ship and flew home. I arrived on scene the following morning to a professionally boarded up garage, front and back door. I got the OK from the insurance comapany to enter and I pried the plywood covering the back door off. 

Needless to say, everything smelled like smoke. I located a flashlight and took a tour. Of course I was pretty much overwhelmed with the damage in the garage. Immediately I noticed the actual fire damage was restricted to the garage. 

A tour of the garage told me these guys knew their stuff.  

I am not a fireman, I am a merchant seaman and have had a couple of serious shipboard fire fighting courses under my belt and I saw what looked like they had not fought the fire from the bottom up, but from the top of the room down or maybe both ends at once. Heat rises and it becomes a battle to fight the heat and the source of the heat at the same time. Had they done it the other way around the fire would have likely have worked its way into the bedroom above the garage and taken off. I would have lost it all.

Clearly they were well trained because they minimized the damage and did a remarkable job. 

I was a small town Volly about 45 years ago and the budget didn't leave much for training. We were fortunate to get training films from the state and occasionally we'd have a couple of professionals from a bigger town nearby drop in on our weekly meetings and teach us a few things. 

Back then the school of thought was to simply flood the fire with water and often the water would cause more damage than the fire. Venting roofs to release hot gases was still in its infancy as was using superheated air to create steam which expands. Todays volunteer firemen are an entirely different breed and have the advantage of good training via one of the fire academies around the state. Our county level academy is in North Park. Part of the courses they give is in the classroom and part of it is hands on.

The guys that saved my home knew their stuff. They were very well trained. When you consider that they not only have families to raise it says a LOT about them as individuals and as a group. These people live in our community and are giving freely of their time back to it to make the area a safer and nicer place to live.

Some if not all of these people have taken time out of their lives to attend various fire academies and their training showed. You should carefully note that these volunteers are pretty much our friends and neighbors. These are the mechanic three doors down, the accountant two streets over, and the local businessman that closes shop and takes off running when there's a call. The come from practically all backgrounds. They include an inordinate number of military veterans.

One other thing I noticed right off is that these guys tried to minimize the damage they did. People see the damage done by firemen and wonder why they do it. There's almost always good reason. For example in a major house fire the guys chop a hole in the roof. They do that to evacuate hot gasses that can accumulate, ignite and spread the fire. (They did not do this in my case. It wasn't needed. Everything was contained in the garage.)

It's a given that the department is going to enter the house and make a search for people or animals. Living things take priority. Both my front and back doors were forcibly opened as they should have been. They were not hacked open with a clumsy axe. They were opened with a tool that forced the deadbolts through the doorjamb.  The door was locked and they simply had no choice. They did what had to be done and they did their best to minimize damage.

The other thing I noticed is when they were searching for my cat they were respectful of my personal property. I know they searched. I could tell by the little things but I knew they were simply looking for Kitty. They managed to locate him and borrowed a cat cage from a neighbor and a friend of the family took him in until I got home. As I write this from a nearby hotel the little guy is nibbling my toes and in general keeping my life interesting. He's a delightful pest.

Another thing that I noticed is that when they forcibly entered the doors the trim from the casings had flown off. When they were doing their walk throughs they carefully picked up the pieces of trim and thoughtfully put it upright next to the door.

Upon my arrival to my home I was boarded out, of course. I was on the front porch and wondered where the glass was. Surely they had to break the storm door glass to get inside. I saw the frame and no glass. Tempered glass shatters into a jillion pieces. I did see a whiskbroom and curiosity got to me. I looked in the trash can and there was the glass! These guys even swept up after themselves!

Then again when you think abut it, these guys are not big city professionals. They are our friends and neighbors.

Of course, money is always a problem in this day and age and things are the same all over. Cutbacks are always a problem. It's easy to shuffle things around and slack off on fire service. The way I see it, our local volunteer fire department manage to provide incredible service on a shoestring budget.

Remember them the next time they go asking for donations.

Final grade: World Class.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY