Tuesday evenings are my evenings to volunteer with my local fire department, as I noted in previous posts we are a Truck Company, which means we are considered a Special Services Unit, which makes us rather unique, what makes us even more unique is that while most Truck Companies staff one Truck, we staff 2 Tractor-Drawn Aerial units as well as an Air/Light Unit out of our quarters. Because of our equipment make-up we are dispatched on 95% of all structure fires and automatic alarms that occur in our city, which usually sends us out of our quarters on average 5 times a day giving us a pretty decent amount of runs per year for a city of only 80,000 people.
Lately, my presence at the station indicates that we will only sit around and do nothing, in fact it has gotten so bad that as soon as I show up many of the guys there will say, “Hey David’s here! I’m going to get into my PT uniform cause I know we won’t be going anywhere as long as he is here.” I just laugh and go along with it, but it does seem true. Last year after having the same set of turnout gear for several years, I was issued a new set of gear, and yes, it is still very clean, in fact the only call I’ve worn it on to get it dirty is the apartment fire I wrote about a couple of months ago.
So yesterday was Tuesday and I showed up like I always do, only as I was driving across town I hear a box alarm dispatched for an apartment building fire, being 3 blocks from the station I know its going to be close to make the truck, but as luck would have it I pass them about a block later as they are heading to the call. *sigh* “Oh well, they have already run 5 calls today there might be another,” I think to myself as I pull into the lot, gather up my gear and uniform and head on into the station. 30 minutes later they are back; it was food left on the stove and only smoked up the apartment some, so no need for a whole lot of units to stay on the scene, the first due Engine Company handled the call by themselves.
The rest of the evening is spent sitting around watching TV, making sure my gear is ready and BSing with the guys. I decide to head home about 9:30 since I’m getting bored and I make a comment to the on duty Lieutenant that when I leave to just get into his gear as they will get a call in about 20 minutes of my leaving.
Exactly 15 minutes after leaving and 4 minutes after walking in my front door at home, you guessed it; they roll out the door on another call.
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