Friday, November 14, 2008

Yes, I really use to fight fire...




Hey everyone,

Hope your having a good week. Sorry I did not get a chance to post yesterday. I left for work Wed and I was not counting on staying till 0600 Thursday morning. By the time I got home, slept and woke up. Time to head back into work.

Anyway, this photo was from a fellow fire photographer. His name is Greg Leaman.

I know the story behind this will make Brad Myers smile as he is a diehard truckman.

The photo is of me loading a ground ladder back onto the ladder truck after a house fire. Before I stopped running, the truck was and still is my favorite piece of fire apparatus. On this day, we were dispatched to a building fire at a local restaurant assiting another department. We arrived and were in staging when a house fire comes in 3 blocks away. A mutual aid engine and my truck company were released right away to go check on the house fire.

The engine and my truck arrive at the same time, The engine left us enough room in front of the house(Only thing they did do right) Smoke was pushing out the front door. I hop out of the truck with forcible entry tools and start heading to the house when I look over and the guy riding the seat of the engine(he's a friend of mine) hops out, does not have his airpack on, is slowly taking his time getting ready. I tell one of the younger guys on the truck to go grab the line off the engine. He looks at me, I told him the same thing again and said, if he's too slow and not prepared, that's his problem, we're not waiting on him to get ready.

So, he runs over and grabs the line of the engine and away we go. We get inside the house and start knocking the fire before the engine crew gets inside and my crew held the fire to just one room.

Needless to say, my friend got harassed for quite awhile as his company is a proud engine company and does not take kindly to losing their line, especially to a truck company.

You have to understand there is usually a friendly competetion between the engine and truck guys. The engine guys usually will never give up their line or get their line stolen, especially by another engine and never by a truck since engine guys think they are smarter and more intelligant then us.


Not this day...


Hopefully this weekend, I can get out and photograph some new things for you guys..


Have a good weekend everyone..


Woody

2 comments:

Grace said...

what a coincidence. I have just seen a movie about Fireman, i forgot the title, but it was with Kurt Russel. Nice movie, now i see your pictures, it reminds me of that movie. :)
Brave job.

Anonymous said...

What a cool shot. Thanks again for sharing these.