A Day in the Life at the PFD
People often ask, “what is it like to be a fireman”? Often, the picture in their minds does not match what the reality of the job is. Some people think that firemen only respond to fires. Others think that when not on calls, we are sitting around playing checkers or cards while waiting for the next alarm. Others think we run one or two calls per day while some think we never get a break. “Perception is reality” so they say but hopefully this will help to adjust the perception.
- For starters, we are on duty for 24 hours. From 8am until the following day at 8am, we are here to protect our community. Alarms come first, second to none of the things below. When someone calls with an emergency, we come! We don’t charge for our services. Your hard earned tax money supports the services we provide. And we make sure you get your money’s worth!
We have three different shifts; A, B and C shifts. Each shift covers a 24-
hour period and each shift rotates their duty days per week. We work a
54-hour work week instead of a 40 hour week like most working adults do.
- A day for a fireman starts before 8am. Most of us come in 30 mins or more before our shift starts so we can find out what the off-going shift had (call wise) and if there was any broken equipment. Lots of coffee gets drank during this time and it is a great opportunity to “catch up” with our brothers on other shifts.
- Once our shift starts at 8am, we spend about an hour (sometimes more) checking our equipment. When someone has an emergency, they expect us to show up, ready to help them “fix” the problem. We have to make sure our tools are ready when the call comes. That means we start and run our trucks, run the sirens and lights, check all of our tools in the compartments, etc. We keep track of each truck using a truck “check list”.
- Time to clean up! After checking our trucks, we usually clean up around the administration offices and our station. That includes taking out the trash, mopping the floors, vacuuming, etc. And you thought being a fireman was all glamorous!
- Most weeks, our training begins at 9:30am and runs until around noon. We train once a week (at a minimum) and it varies from subject to subject. There are many skills to be competent at so it requires constant training. Be it staying up on our EMS medical skills or firefighting tactics, we take training seriously. This is a very important aspect of our job. You wouldn’t want to call 911 and have someone show up having to “refresh” on how to help you out. The time for practicing is at training, so we are ready and able to help anyone when the time comes.
- Every business in the City of Portage is inspected annually, and approximately ½ receive a second visit to follow up on any outstanding issues. This takes us several months out of the year. It averages approximately 300 inspections per station, per year. Most crews are out inspecting when they are not on calls or training. It is one major reason why the city does not have a “commercial fire” problem. We work proactively with our business community to make sure they are safe so they can stay OPEN for BUSINESS!
- Physical fitness is another important piece to being a fireman. What most people do not know is firemen live approximately 10 years less than the average person. This is due to the physical demands of the job, especially on the heart. Imagine being sound asleep and being woken up out of that deep sleep with a loud alarm and a report that someone needs your help. It causes great stress on the heart. As a result, most firemen workout for around an hour and ½ a day. Cardio is a big one that most try to focus on in order to strengthen our hearts for the extra demands that are put on us.
- Just like most working folks, we have lots of paperwork that has to be completed too. Every run that we go on has to have a report completed on it saying what happened and what we did. We also have other reports and schedules that are completed daily.
- Weekly, we do extensive cleaning and maintenance on our tools and trucks. This is again, proactive so we can avoid bigger costs in the future to our department. By maintaining our equipment, we not only ensure it works when we need it but we also save on costs of wear and tear on the tools and trucks. This takes us about 3-4 hours every Sunday.
- Hey kids, if you think chores stop when you get older,,,, think again! Every day of the week we have chores that must be completed before we leave from our 24 hour shift. The only excuse for not doing our chores is if we ran too many calls. Here is a breakdown of what our chores look like.
Monday – Vacuum floors around the station/administration
Tuesday – Bathrooms! Yes, we have to clean toilets!
Wednesday – Wash the windows around the station
Thursday – Clean our kitchen / refrigerator out
Friday – Dust station
Saturday – Clean truck bay floors
Sunday – Weekly equipment maintenance
- The fire department provides special services to the community that most do not even realize. Besides the code enforcement that we discussed above, the department also provides “Child Safety Seat Installations/Inspections”. We usually average one or two of those per week and have several firemen who are trained to do it.
- Unlike most departments in the city, the Fire Department performs a lot of “self maintenance” on our buildings and equipment. This takes time out of our day to make sure that our buildings are maintained and are looking good. Firemen are assigned to various “special committees” in order to make sure things are kept up, stocked up and maintained.
- A very important piece of being a fireman is ‘Public Education’. The best way to fight a fire is to prevent it from happening to begin with. We do this by providing station tours where kids and their parents can come in to see us. We share information about how to prevent fires, how to get out of your house if it is ever on fire and what to do if your clothes catch on fire. A tour may range from a small group to larger groups of 30-40 people. We welcome all tours and love to spend time with our visitors. Our doors are open to you!
Another thing we do is puppet shows in the local elementary schools where we teach ‘Young 5s’ and ‘Kindergarten’ students fire prevention and the items listed above. We put on shows at 8 schools, 16 times per season plus shows for 3rd graders in the spring.
The fire department also comes to block parties and other community events (like Home Depot). You can schedule those through our Fire Marshall’s office.
- Clean, red fire trucks are happy fire trucks! We wash our fire trucks and keep them clean. We take pride in our trucks and know that they are a reflection on all of us. We usually wash the trucks each morning before we leave however during the rainy or snow season, we wash them a lot more to prevent dirt and/or salt from building up on them.
- Days of playing checkers, cards, sleeping while waiting for calls are over.
- This list above is just a small list of what a fireman does during the day but the BIGGEST reason we are here, is to come help when someone is having a “bad day”. We get called for all kinds of emergencies and reasons. Here is a small sample of what we get called to but remember, we get called for EVERYTHING. When people don’t know who to call, they call us!
- Fires (of course), fire alarms, brush fires, reports of smoke, etc.
- Medical calls. If someone doesn’t feel good, they get the Portage Fire Department along with an ambulance since we are closer and can get there faster. This can be a diabetic emergency or even a shooting. Anything medical related, we come. This is called a two-tiered system.
- Vehicle (cars, trucks, motorcycles, trains, etc) accidents
- Special technical rescues – high angle, confined space, trench, hazardous materials, etc.
- The “unusual” – bats in basements, cats in storm drains, frozen pipes, etc.
There is NO way to put a list of everything we respond to. Use your imagination,,, we probably would come to that event your thinking of!!!
- If you see a fire truck at the grocery store, we may be there on a call. But in the case we are not, more than likely we are getting supplies. While on duty for 24 hours, we eat all of our meals at the fire station. Therefore, we will take a fire truck to the store (since we are still ‘available’ for calls) to get our food for the shift.
- Firemen sleep at the fire station. We have a ‘bunk room’ where there are beds that we can use during the 24 hours we are on duty. Of course, we are still ‘available’ for calls during that time so don’t expect to get a good night sleep very often. Most of the time, we are up several times per night to respond to calls.
This is the life of a fireman. For every 1 position, there is a line of over 100 trying to get in. The reasons are many but I think everyone would agree, they do it to help people. We have a passion to help YOU when you need it most. “While others are at their worst, we are at our best”. We are a service in “readiness”, waiting for that moment when our community needs us.
The City of Portage is growing and so is our alarm activity. We have responded to over 200 more alarms this year than last. As our community ages, the need for our services will only continue to grow. One thing you can count on is we are here for you. All you have to do is call and we will be there. COUNT on IT!
Stop by and see us sometime! We would love to show you around……
