Got a voicemail the other night with a message from SW Fire dept. that the training class begins August 5th at 7:00 pm!! Pretty excited to see what happens that night.

 

good luck, hope it all works out for ya.... very rewarding...

 

pics if possible

 

Still counting down the days.....6 more until first meeting. It's getting pretty exciting now. Only thing that sucks is that I f'd up my right rotator cuff a little while ago and still have some soreness/muscle-tears that I'm trying to back to 100%. Going in tonight again to get worked on bit more. First meeting is just introducing everything so shouldn't be any physical activity yet anyways.

 

Anything in particular you are looking for?????

 

good luck

i have been throwing the idea around lately, it will all depend if i keep my job during the school year or not, but i think it would be a fun and really rewarding "job" i think. and learn alot of good life skills and help alot of people in the process.

 

Well, the 5th was the first night. It went really well. Watching an introduction video, lots of talking and introductions. There are approx. 30 members total. 6 of us newbies in-training. Everyone there is really nice, brotherhood is definitely the perfect word to describe it. They even call themselves a family. Found out it is the 2nd only volunteer station to offer ALS (advanced life support) in our area. There are 2 paramedics. We also got keys to all the stations, our pagers, and our firefighting gear sized and picked out. Every Tuesday night there is meetings/training for everyone. Our recruit classes will be once every other week I believe....starts again on the 26th of this month. They encourage us new guys to come hang out - go through the trucks to get used to where everything is - hang out - meet everyone - etc. I went down this past Sunday to check out the weight equipment they had and talked to a few members that were also there. Very educational. Overall I'm very impressed with the operation. It will be fun learning the ropes and going on calls eventually. Some perks of it is that everything is paid for - like getting Hepatitus B shots, any schooling/training that you want to do, $30,000 life insurance policy for being an active member, etc. etc. I don't remember everything else to this point but I will get some pictures up eventually here and keep updating as the process continues. Stay Tuned....

 

I Hate those helmets, I prefer the Cairns New Yorker. They tend to stay on my head as they are better balanced IMO.

 

Last night was the first hands-on training class. Every Tuesday night there is a meeting/training class. It's not part of the 'new recruit class' but it's still worth attending. So at 7pm when our class was supposed to start a call came in for a 3 car accident so everyone ran off to that. 45 min later we were able to start out evening activities. Loaded up our gear and headed to station 2 where they had a car on the ground and another one upside down. Learned how to use high pressure and low pressure bags to lift the vehicle off the ground while at the same time people on the sides are cribbing (blocking) the vehicle up so it can't fall back down and is completely stable. It was a lot of fun. Learned a lot. Spent about 2 hours doing this. The guys are very willing to teach and give pointers and let us do the work for the expirence. Very nice group of people to be working with. Our next new recruit class is 1 week from today. See what happens then.

 

Well - to revive an old thread - things are going pretty good so far. I am still really enjoying every minute of being a part of this volunteer dept. Still in recruit class/training. Am not fully cleared to respond to calls yet by myself without being brought on by an officer. There is so much information and stuff to learn. I have already learned so much and still have a long ways to go. It will always be a learning process I'm sure. I did get to go on a fire call a week or two ago. It was midnight when the call came out. Made it to my station to hitch a ride on the tanker to the scene. Wasn't much going on but still got to do a lot of little jobs. Even got to flow some water on some smoldering insulation. Here is a link to the news report on this call:

http://www.1011now.com/home/headlines/83017652.html

Our department has a new and revised website too that is constantly being updated with some of the recent calls that we go on. It's pretty cool - check it out- it is at:

http://www.swfire.org

So yea - really enjoying everything so far. So far it has been one of the best decisions I have made in my life I feel. It should only be a few more weeks until we are 'graduated' and done with recruit classes. Oh, and for our training burn, we are burning an old farm house on my property down next month sometime! That should be a lot of fun. Until we burn it down we are going to start using it next week for various training exercises too - like search and rescue, etc. In May our department is putting on a 3-day training event called Vehext (Vehicle Extrication). We will be in a classroom all day on Friday, but then will be cutting up cars on Sat and Sun for 8 hours per day. That should be a lot of fun using the jaws and other tools. We have a tow company lined up to set up different scenes and situations. They have almost 50 cars for us.

 

Hi,

Thanks very much for this comment. It help me to think about my ideals.

We also find them more same at: Firefighter interview questions
Tks again and pls keep posting.

 

No problem!! Being as how the last post to this thread was for the Vehext class - here is a youtube video I made from my helmet cam during the event.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJPIgGYN2hU


I'm still really enjoying being a part of this brotherhood. I'm now currently taking EMT-B classes at the local community college. It's a crazy schedule working my day job from 7am to 6pm then going to class 2 nights a week from 7pm to 10pm mon and wednesday. Throw in the weekly training with the dept. every tues night from 7pm to 10pm I don't get home on mon, tues, or wed until 10:30ish! But class is done in December. It's a 6 month class and then I'll be able to do stuff on medical calls. I'll take my national registry test right after class is out.

 

I came aboard late on this topic, But i'm also a vol. and love it. Been in for 6 years, a line officer for 4. Current nomanations coming on Monday, hoping to move to 2nd captain from 3rd. But If I didn't love it, I truely wouldn't run for a line officer position and put more hours in than a regular fireman/woman.
I was one told when I first started and continue to tell my new guys the same, "Keep alot of aluiminum foil on hand, because there is going to alot of meals left."

Good Luck and be safe,

 

I have been in the fire service for going on 10 years now Roughly 3 years ago i was hurt while working at a house fire long story short the second floor collapsed on me and my partner we got out and we are fine but i have bin oos for the last 3 years because of it. But i am very glad to here that there are alot of fire fighters on this forums. good luck JD790 i hope you have a long time in the fire service. o and here is 2 pics of 2 of my helmets.
This is whats left of the helmet i had on the night i got hurt


This is alittle bit older pic of my new helmet i will try and get a better one later