Name: Ken Vetesy

Age: 25

Lives in: East Stroudsburg

Family: Mom Vicki, dad Ken Sr., sister Heather, 32, brother Nathan, 18, sister Makayla, 16, girlfriend Pam, bulldog Mack

Job: Pharmacy technician for Rite Aid Pharmacy; he is also a full-time student at ESU, studying sports management

How long in the E-burg fire department: three years

Job in the department: Drill captain; assistant chaplain; chauffeur; basic vehicle rescue technician; firefighter; recently completed Firefighter I

Why he joined: Vetesy was inspired by other family members who were involved in the fire service, including his grandfather Robert Counterman, who volunteered with the Shawnee and Delaware Water Gap Fire Departments and served with the Monroe County Fire Police Association for 13 years; cousins Mike Sofia, who is a junior firefighter with the Coolbaugh Township Fire Department, and Mike's father, Mike Sr., who is an assistant chief with CTVFC; and James "Choo Choo" Chase.

Vetesy says that his most memorable fire was a fully involved garage near Zacharias Pond. He was third on a hose line (meaning that there was one man on the nozzle, and there was another man in front of him on the hose) and a tire on the truck exploded.

"That's when I started to expect the unexpected," he said, laughing. "You just never know."

Ken says that the camaraderie and brotherhood is a big part of what keeps him in the department. "Even though we don't always get along, when the pagers go off and we get on the trucks, we work as one unit," he said.

His keywords are commitment, sacrifice and dedication. "You have to be willing to commit to a minimum of 166 hours of training that takes a lot of time away from your life. You have to be willing to sacrifice time with family and friends; when the pager goes off in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, you have to be willing to sacrifice that plate of turkey and be ready to train, train, train; and you have to be dedicated enough to get out of a nice warm bed in the middle of the night in the winter because someone else needs your help. You never know what you'll find when you get to a scene; that's why you joined in the first place.

"You have to be here because you want to be, not because you feel you have to be," Vetesy said.