Hi, my name’s Martin, I work as a firefighter on Red Watch at
Princes Street Fire Station in Ipswich. I’ve been in the job
for 8 months now and really love what I do.
Today is my 1st day duty of this tour of 4 shifts (2 days and
2 nights). I always make sure I get to work in plenty of time to
get ready for the start of the shift at 08:58 hrs. That’s the time
we get dressed in firekit for roll call and we’re given our riding
positions on the fire appliance (pump) and detailed our duties for
the day.
Once roll call is over, we then check every piece of equipment on
the pump is correctly stowed and that our Breathing Apparatus (BA)
sets work correctly.
We then have handover of essential information and updates which
have come in since we were last on duty, but this is interrupted by
a fire call (Shout)! We’re called to a Sheltered housing complex
where a resident has forgotten to remove a pan of food from the
cooker and the smoke has set the fire alarm off.
Two of us had to wear BA to go in, turn off the heat and
remove the pan and ventilate the flat.
Luckily, the resident didn’t inhale any smoke, but needed
re-assurance everything was ok because they were quite shaken by
the incident.
It’s nice to be able to put someone’s mind at ease, it might be a
small job for us to deal with, but it’s very traumatic for those
involved!
Once back at the station, we have to clean and service our BA
sets then we get straight on with Station work routines
- every single piece of equipment has to be tested on a
regular basis to ensure it’s in top condition ready for use.
After tea break, we have a training session set up to test our
procedures in dealing with a chemical leak. We all get
involved and learn a lot - you really never stop learning in this
job, even long serving firefighters tell me that!
We had our second call out during the training to a
nearby office block where three people were in a lift that got
stuck between floors. That was soon sorted and, after giving some
advice on how to avoid it happening again, it was back to the
station to resume training. After a de-brief, we get cleaned up in
time for lunch.
Just as we sit down, we get our third call out – it was a Road
Traffic Collision (RTC) between a lorry and a car. We had to
release two people from the car so they could be taken to hospital.
It takes good teamwork between us, the police, paramedics and the
County Council's Highways department to deal with this. Once back
on station, we have to service the equipment we just used before we
can get back to lunch; no-one minds a late lunch, it’s part of the
job!
This afternoon, we’re booked to give a talk at a local school about
the
job of a firefighter and
fire safety in the home.
I love the chance to tell people what we do and how they can
stay safe. We meet people from all sections of the community, from
various backgrounds and cultures and it gives us a chance to
learn about the public we serve. At the end of the talk, we
show them round the pump and all the equipment we carry and why we
carry it. Everyone’s amazed at the range of kit we carry, but
we have to be prepared for most types of rescue!
On our way back to the station, we get a fire call to some
undergrowth on fire. It’s outside town but has got too big
for the crew attending to deal with, so they’ve called for
backup.
Between us, we deal with the fire but the police tell us it was
started deliberately (arson) and as one of my colleagues is trained
to talk to youths who start fires in order to stop them
re-offending, he takes the lad’s details and books him in for a
chat.
While the rest of the crew are busy back at station, I get some
time to do some private study before we leave off at 17:58 hrs once
we’ve made sure everything is clean ready for the night watch to
take over from us.
What a day!!
The beauty is that no two shifts are ever the same, but every one
is a challenge and so rewarding!