You know it is going to be a screwed up day when you are working midnight shift at your full time job, thus sleeping at 3:00 PM and the tones drop for a structure fire. I hit the road figuring it is gonna be the typical FA we get in the daytime because all of our cookers come at night...WRONG! First engine marks on scene with heavy smoke showing so of course it is now go time. I was a bit delayed anyway since I had to grab my work clothes since I knew if it was a worker I was gonna be taking a… Continue

I see a continuing trend today of departments trying to phase out volunteers to "improve services". This is B.S.! This is B.S. because at the same time you see departments cutting budgets and laying off firefighters or just not filling open positions to save the same money they spent to hire folks and phase out the volunteers. I will agree, most volunteer departments have longer response times than a full time or a part time staffed department, but to what benefit when due to budget cuts you… Continue