News Article Offers Insight into Interesting Lives of Volunteer Firefighters

The Boys and their boys: Pat Davis and Zach, John Latimore and Kyle, Alex and I, and Bruce with Keegan on his lap.

Buffalo News Feature Reporter Ann Neville — a volunteer firefighter herself — shares her keen insight into the interesting and interrupted lifestyles that come with being a volunteer firefighter in this two-page feature published on Sunday-December 15, 2013.

We often say that life in the fire service is not a job — it’s a lifestyle — and a very interrupted lifestyle at that. But, the next time the siren sounds we’re ready to run out the door: clothes, keys and equipment in hand; leaving our loved ones behind in a warm bed, at the dinner table, or just as we were all ready to walk out the door for a family gathering.

Three Decades and One New Sidewalk.

I just came home from responding to my third second-alarm fire of the week in my role as Deputy Fire Coordinator in the Erie County Department of Emergency Services and have a narrow window of opportunity to write this post. I’ve got about two hours to shower, shave, eat and then report to a law enforcement detail I’m assigned to until 3am. So here goes:

Earlier today I responded to an EMS call for a person with chest pains. Being assigned as Fire/Rescue only, I don’t typically respond to a ton of house calls but I try to help out at my fair share. Today, I was glad I did.

Two of my all-time favorites at the fire station: Angelo Rizzuto and Denny Allen+ at a drill in 2010.

Upon returning to the station I went around to the administrative side of our building to check on the progress of our large parking lot paving project (large, as in square feet and dollars!). The contractors were just finishing the last section of new sidewalk around the perimeter of our assembly hall. Standing there with our President Geordie Sinclair and 53-year active member Angelo Rizzuto, I asked Geordie if I could write my initials in the corner of the concrete, just as I had done when the assembly hall and original sidewalk were built, in 1971.

I remember that event as if it were yesterday, recalling how the contractors paid a few of us neighborhood kids 25 or 50 cents a day to help them pick up materials and debris. I was 8-years old.

I thought that initialing the new sidewalk would only be appropriate, seeing as I’m still here, so many years later. It was then that Geordie reminded me that I have an important anniversary coming up this week.

How’d you get involved?

There’s a discussion going on over at FirefighterNation.com that asks the question: “How’d you get involved?”

Although it was started by a Junior Firefighter asking other Juniors what sparked them to join the fire service, several adults are chiming in too. It’s fun to watch these discussions evolve.

What’s going to be even more fun will be to see how these Juniors’ stories end up 10, 20 or more years from now.

Run to the Curb. Get in the discussion at: http://www.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/howd-you-get-involved

Run-to-the-Curb Bonanza

Actually it’s a carnival — not quite a bonanza.

Run-to-the-Curb.com has hit the jackpot with FireCritic’s First Due Blog Carnival Episode 1 which challenged bloggers to share their answers to the question: “I’m a firefighter because…”

What FireCritic ended up with was some of the deepest, most endearing – and hilarious – compilations of how 14 of the most prolific firefighter/bloggers got their start in the fire service and what keeps them going. The carnival even includes my own story of how I was perhaps destined to be a firefighter because “It was in the cards.”

It was in the cards.

My grandmother sent me this fire truck card for my first birthday.

I posted this blog at www.tigerschmittendorf.com as part of the First Due Fire Blog Carnival being hosted by the FireCritic.

It’s an enhanced excerpt from Fortune Tellers that tells the story: “I’m a firefighter because…”

Read “It was in the cards.” and tell me your story of how and why you got started in the fire service right here at Run-to-the-Curb.com

I remember my first time…

I just got home from drill night at the fire station a few minutes ago. It was a good drill. Our Captain started out with basic run card assignments for first and second out apparatus, depending on if we were going to a mutual aid or if it was our own “original” work.

He did a good job of covering assignments and there was good interaction amongst the group that included everyone from Explorers to Firefighters with 35+ years of experience, and everything in between. It lead into a presentation and discussion of minimum staffing for our volunteer department, including a video depicting the importance of a well coordinated attack on a heavily involved fire.

Remember as a kid…

The title of this discussion on FirefighterNation.com really caught my attention as I remember a lot of things as a kid — and many of them are related to the fire service.

This particular discussion revolves around the author’s childhood memories of hearing the fire siren sounding  and then tuning to a particular AM station on his radio dial where they would broadcast the call location for all to hear.

The Log Book

Some friends of mine can’t even believe that I showed them “The Log Book” — let alone posted it on the Internet for everyone to see… and laugh at.

But I’m not that kind of guy. I think it’s pretty funny. Besides, I’m always warning people not to take me too seriously, because I certainly don’t.