We have to operate on site and we don’t get to choose the locations that we respond to when the alarm goes off. Quite often when you see us we’re putting our gear on alongside the road. This causes some predicaments that can be hilarious or dangerous and that’s the burden of being a firefighter.

For example, our gear is prepackaged with the boots already in the bunker pants to make it easier and quicker to put on. I can’t recall how many times I put my bunker pants on with the suspenders caught either between my legs or under my boot. This makes quite a picture when your try to put your gear on a fast as possible and the suspenders are snagged on something. Pulling on my bunker pants trying to get them on while trying to unsnag the suspenders is an exercise in futility.

One of the other problems we encounter is pranksters messing with our gear. I left my gear in the station one time to dry off after a call. Someone took my boots and turned them around and I never noticed until I had to put it on. There I was on the side of the road trying to put my bunker pants on backwards.

The worst was when someone put my boots back in banana feet. You have to take the boots right out of the pants and fix them and you have to do this on the side of the road in whatever conditions you’re experiencing. This can be night, snow, rain, etc… leading to a very frustrating first couple of minutes.

This is really just a minor inconvenience when you consider what our vehicles go through. I went to a fire one summer night and I left the windows open. After an hour it rained on us something fierce with lightning crashing nearby and water coming down in sheets. We finished up about two in the morning and I went to get in my truck to warm up and dry off only to see the open windows as I approached. I approached my rain soaked truck with my head hanging low, it was not a fun scene.

One night when my wife and I were dating I took her on a fire call. We were fighting a grass fire in the marsh when the flank of the fire got away from us and headed straight for my truck. The truck was standard which my future wife couldn’t drive. She just sat there watching the flames get closer and bigger.

We were putting a tree out when I noticed the flank of the fire was headed right for my truck. The marsh was still frozen and when I hit the nozzleman on the shoulder and pointed at the fire he turned and ran, only to slip and fall right on his face. He got up so quick it looked like he had done it on purpose to show off his cat like reflexes. We got the fire out just as my wide eyed future wife bailed out of the truck.

Other times we have to contend with snow and that means we’re dependent on homeowners to take care of their driveways. At one particular fire there had been a snowstorm and the driveway wasn’t cleared. One of our firefighters had a plow on his truck and tried to clear the driveway to make way for the fire engine. He misjudged the driveways location and put his front tire in the ditch which hung up his plow and he ended up hopelessly stuck and blocking the driveway.

The rest of us showed up and started picking on him. We asked if he activated our alarm for manpower to push him out of the ditch. He took it in stride but he had a bowtie truck and flatly refused an offer from an oval truck to pull him out. He waited for another bowtie truck to show up lest he suffer the indignity of being pulled out by an oval truck.

There was another fire on Christmas day when an assistant Chief arrived first and parked on the lawn out of the way and took command of the fire. When the fire was out he turned around and headed out the driveway. I was talking to the family when I noticed he wasn’t lined up with the driveway. I said “he’s going to miss the driveway” and everyone turned to watch him drop his truck right in the ditch.

The funniest part of the whole scene was a family member scream “Oh my god” and ran over to the truck and flung the door open. I didn’t see what she saw so I ran over, too. Thinking the worst I saw her retrieve a little dog that had been riding shotgun. She comforted the little dog and put it back in the truck. She never once asked how our Assistant Chief was, she only cared about the little dog that took a tumble off the seat of the truck. That’s the life of a firefighter.