Okay this is an article from a Canadian newspaper but it is very true. People seem to fall in love with the glamorous picture of being a fire fighter as seen on tv and in the movies. But it is far from glamourous. It is dirty, cold, and hard work. What this reporter didn't get to see is us blowing our noses and having black snot coming out. Or coming home from a middle of the night call to go right back out and you still have to go to the job that pays your bills in the morning without any sleep.
Firefighting not all glamour
Bruce Campbell
Ramlbin’ On
Wednesday December 07, 2005 High River Times — When you’re an eight-year-old boy dreaming of growing up to be a firefighter, you imagine it’s about running into buildings and saving some damsel in distress.
What you don’t imagine is standing in the freezing cold, watching over a destroyed historical building in the middle of the night to ensure there are no more hot spots and that the site isn’t tampered with before the investigation.
The High River fire department once again went beyond the call of duty during the fire at Smiley’s Gateway Hotel in Nov. 28.
When Fire Chief Len Zebedee was fighting the fire, directing his men and women and coming up with his successful strategy to ensure the fire didn’t spread, I was on the sidelines, asking a paramedic on stand-by, if “Hey, can you go bug Len and tell him I need a quote? Tell Len to hurry. I’m on deadline -- this is an emergency.”
I was rightfully told to go to the media centre at the town office. I’m sure the paramedic was thinking of all sorts of places to tell me where to go.
The following night, I popped in on firefighters Curtis Doell and Mike Pearl at the Gateway site, who were standing guard.
While the spectacular fire drew hundreds of spectators, watching a burned-out hotel at 9:30 at night has all the appeal of knitting as a spectator sport.
I wasn’t about to mistake Curtis with Kurt Russell in Backdraft at that exact moment.
So after a few minutes of chitchat, I took a picture (which didn’t turn out --hey, man, it was cold out) and left.
Boy it’s tough being a reporter.
Meanwhile, these guys had to stay up until 1 a.m in polar bear-type weather. Oh, yeah, they are volunteers, so they were getting paid exactly the same as I was while I drank warm milk and read Huck Finn --nothing.
Just for good measure there were other firefighters who were going to take their place at 1 a.m for the “bad shift.”
Sadly, my illusions of being a firefighter have been shattered -- it’s too much work.
But I sleep easier knowing there are folks out there who are putting in the effort to make my community and myself safer.
What our firefighters do, is something the community, myself included, take for granted.
I guess, now I wanna be a cowboy
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