Firefighter I Academy - week 1

I am training to be a firefighter. I am taking the Spring 2011 Firefighter I Academy through the Boulder County Firefighter Association.  When I have completed the academy, I will be certified as a Colorado Firefighter Type 1.

Why am I doing this?  I am a wife, mother, and professional in my mid-forties.  I enjoy doing endurance sports like running marathons and doing triathlons.  I joined my local volunteer fire department a couple of years ago.  We had lived in the district for several years, but I had never gotten around to joining.  I kept telling myself that I was too busy and that I would think about it later.  One of my neighbors is the radio controller for the department and his wife was active in the department.  The fire chief lived on our road.  The fire chief was at a neighborhood party and I talked to him about it.  He was very encouraging and suggested that I could be a wildland firefighter and fight forest fires with my endurance abilities.    So I decided to join.  I don’t do any sort of volunteer work and this was something that I could try.  I thought it would also be a way to meet the people who live near me. 

I’m a joiner.  I have running, biking and swimming groups.  Since I am a naturally introverted person, joining groups has allowed me to make friends in a number of areas. Joining the fire department was just another group to join and meet new and different people.

I also thought that it was something that my husband and I could do together.  He doesn’t do the running, biking and swimming that I do.  I don’t enjoy downhill skiing, kayaking or volleyball that he does.  We don’t even enjoy the same movies, TV or books.  I’m vegetarian and he is a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. We have a really hard time finding things to do together.  He went to a couple of meetings sort of reluctantly. He treated it like they were just people doing dress-up because they weren’t “real” firefighters.  We went to one training where we put on all the bunker gear – the big coat and pants you always see – and SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) – the oxygen – and entered a smoke-filled, dark building.  It was summer and the bunker gear is very heavy and the SCBA can be panic-inducing because it covers the face and neck and it is not easy to get off.  He got very hot and the SCBA made him feel very claustrophobic.  That was the end of his training.  The chief told him that he could stick with other parts of the firefighting – like wildfire only – but he was done.  I did the same training he did and I also found it very hot, claustrophobic and hard, but I felt like it was something that I could learn to do.  I continued on the department without him.

One perk to the fire department is free training. There really are not many places where you can learn a new skill for free. If you are willing to put in the time, they will pay for the training.  I love to learn new things and firefighting is something that is completely outside what I have learned to do up until now. When you get into your forties, learning new and different things often takes work and research and it’s just easier to put it off and watch a movie instead.  Last year they offered a 40-hour course to become a medical First Responder.  I also got my “red card” after completing a 40-hour wildland firefighting class with a practical where we had to put out a real wildland fire as part of a crew. 

View of the Fourmile Fire from Boulder

Over Labor Day weekend, the Fourmile fire started.  On the first day, I joined a crew and dug line with the fire until two in the morning.   I watched one house start with the flames licking up the sides and watched it burn to the ground.  I later learned that a woman I knew had lived there. There was nothing our crew could do since we weren’t with a fire truck that had water.  Our house survived the fire, but we were evacuated for about ten days while the fire was put out.  Several of our neighbors lost houses and the view from our house changed significantly.

I am now starting the Firefigher I Academy being given through the Boulder County Firefighers Association.  Since we are all volunteers with other things in our lives, this class is being given evenings and weekends between January and April.  When we are done, we will be certified in Hazardous Materials Operations and a Colorado Type 1 Firefighter.  Class started this past week and we have had 8 hours of instruction so far, mostly on firefighting history and general topics.  There are 19 people in the class from various agencies in the county.  I was worried that being in my mid-forties, I would be the age of some of the students’ mothers.  Luckily, I was wrong.  Although there are some young guys, the instructor pointed out that there is a lot of “maturity” in the class.  There are also a significant number of women in the class which also makes it more comfortable.   I know I can do this and I am excited for the challenges that are coming up. 

Here are a few odd facts that I have learned so far in our classroom training.

·         Ben Franklin is considered the father of American firefighting.  He created the first fire company.  George Washington was also a volunteer firefighter.

·         Dalmations were introduced to fire departments when there were horse-drawn firetrucks to chase away dogs that would try to chase the horses.

·         Mrs. O’Leary’s cow did not start the famous Chicago fire.

·         Denver had a fire just 5 years after it was founded that destroyed most of the town. After the fire, the town mandated that new buildings must be made from stone or brick.

·         About 80% of firefighters in this country are volunteers.

New Years - Plan to Exercise Consistently

I wish that people would ask me for advice for how to exercise consistently.  I'm actually pretty good at getting exercise.  Eating right is another matter, which is partly why I exercise so much. The following is something I have developed over years and it works for me. I've seen it recommended in other articles about exercise.

1. On Sunday night or Monday morning, I plan my exercise for the week. I try to make a goal for the week, like trying to do X hours of exercise or run Y times and do Z classes. 
2. I then write down what I am planning to do each day of the week to get to that goal. I put it on a calendar or in my planner.
3. When I do what I planned, I circle it (in red) on my calendar and write down how long it was (bike - 30 minutes).  If it didn't get done, I don't do anything.
4. On the following Sunday, I look at what I did and if I reached my  goal.  If not, then I try to determine why not and what could be done the following week to get better results.  Sometimes  I have really bad weeks.   Then  I plan for the following week.

Articles about exercise often tell you to plan your workouts like I do here, but my big difference is circling the workouts that get completed. It's a great visual tool to see what days you have trouble with.    When things go well, its also great to see all the circles on the calendar.

 

I find that having a reasonable weekly goal helps get to the long-term goals.