When they don’t know what to do, they call the fire department. We as a profession have become so much more than just firefighters. The title firefighter encompasses so many things now days. We are at the least firefighters, extrication technicians, medically trained, rescue specialists, high angle technicians, divers, haz-mat technicians and so much more.
There was a day not so long ago when firefighters fought fire, that was it. I love all aspects of this profession and doing all the tasks listed above. My favorite is haz-mat. Although it is one that is the most unpredictable and at times the most dangerous but it is the most challenging to me.
Hazardous Materials has so many parameters that are hard to predict, you never know what your going to be dealing with. We recently had an accident on the interstate that runs through my community. When I arrived on scene the truck was burning, people trapped under the burning truck in cars the truck had ran over and a chemical, unknown at the time, melting the asphalt. Scary but challenging to deal with. With all that said, not all calls dealing with haz-mat are that bad. Some are smaller and of course, some can be larger. A single chemical is one thing, problem is a lot of the time when we get there they have mixed with something else, making some type of life taking cocktail. It takes a lot of research and training to deal with this stuff. When they don’t know what to do, they call the fire department, haz-mat is just another hat that we have to wear.
Urban Search and Rescue has also started to be a big responsibility in the fire service, but we will discuss that later. It all comes down to the same thing. When they don’t know what to do, they call the fire department. They call us. That’s ok with me, I love every minute of it
Until next time, be safe
Captain K
