Cover Story

Fires. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Firefighters are the everyday heroes who help us out of our not-so-everyday problems.

Whether it is someone’s home set ablaze, a medical emergency or even sometimes our own stupidity, they are the ones that get the call. Central Fire station, located in downtown Mobile just east of Broad Street, and the firefighters who live there have seen their share of calls. Having been in existence since 1925, the station has seen just about every variety of call firefighters could possibly deal with.

“A lot of guys don’t like downtown because we have the chiefs and all, but most everybody that comes down here loves it and they don’t want to leave,” says Capt. Raymond Hildreth with Central’s second shift. According to Hildreth, the combination of high-rises, residential neighborhoods and the Dauphin Street bar scene create a good potential for calls. Or at least it used to. Since the flooding and the evacuation of the Orange Grove area due to Hurricane Katrina, the number of calls had dipped due to the loss of population. Currently, the station averages around six or seven calls a day.

‘It’s a good place for young firefighters to come to,” Hildreth says.

One of those young, or new, firefighters is Private Jody Machen. Machen is a 32-year-old firefighter who just started working at Central right out of the training center in December of 2005. He’s been working at it for several years, though. In 2003, he went through the whole training process and passed, but they didn’t hire on the full class that year, so he had to go through the application and physical test again to get on board.

It takes a certain amount of dedication to get through the test, especially if you are going to go through it twice. Outside of a written test, it also includes a lot of physical training. The cardio tests are set up to make sure firefighters have the physical endurance to put up with the high-stress situations in which they’re sure to find themselves.

There is an obstacle course candidates must finish in 10 minutes. They must also ride a Stairmaster for about three minutes, while weight is incrementally added to the machine. Dragging a human-sized dummy 100 feet, crawling through a dark maze and being able to open a door with a sledgehammer are other tests that relate more directly to a firefighter’s job. On average, about 60 percent of applicants fail.

If you were willing to put yourself through this process, twice nonetheless, the job would definitely be something worth having. For Machen, part of it comes down to making “good” calls.

“Good calls are when you do stuff on a scene where you can see immediate results in the way people’s disposition… and their alertness change,” he explained.

Many of the calls firefighters are sent to are medical emergencies, acting as first responders along with an ambulance. Machen recalled going on a call in West Mobile where a man was having a heart attack at his home.

“You’re sitting out there, 10 miles from a hospital during five o’ clock traffic having to go 80 miles-an-hour in a rescue truck. It can get pretty exciting,” he said.

Although medical calls make up the bulk of a firefighter’s runs, house fires still remain at the top of intensity list in terms of calls they wait for.

“A big fire, getting to go in on a big fire… getting to go in and breach the ceiling and trying to get into the attic …that’s about as exciting as it gets,” Machen said.

During a standard house fire – although the men interviewed stated multiple times that every fire is different – the first crew on the scene will usually try to enter the home from the opposite side of the burn, bursting through doors and dragging a water hose through whatever smoke and debris happens to be in their way.

“You get in there and the smoke is banking down and you can’t really see anything and you’re on your hands and knees and all that…that’s the best,” Machen said.

Many other firefighters share Machen’s attitude towards the job.

“It’s a great job… you can’t beat it,” says Private Brent Jungenberg. Jungenberg, 39, has been a fulltime firefighter for about six years and has always been based out of Central Station. Jungenberg worked with a volunteer fire department and was hired on after moving to Mobile with his wife. “I’ve always liked doing it, and now I get paid to,” he said.

Jungenberg has gone out on many calls during his years at Central, when asked if any stick out in his mind, he takes a short pause before recalling a story about pulling a girl out of a burning house. A number of years ago, Jungenberg and the rest of his shift were called out to house fire near Texas Street.

“As far as we knew, nobody was supposed to be in the house, then come to find out she skipped school and reentered the home,” Jungenberg said.

They were able to pull her out of the burning home, although the girl had first- and second-degree burns. The young girl, somewhere between 10 and 11, spent some time at the USA burn center, but survived the disaster.

“That’s my only one that we’ve ever got everybody out of. Made a few that people didn’t get out of, you always get a few of those,” Jungenberg said.

Sometimes the people who don’t get out are the firefighters themselves. There has been a push over the past five years for improved firefighter safety. “Save your own, get out alive,” seems to be the big safety push these days according to Capt. Hildreth.

The gear most firefighters wear into a fire, including jackets, pants, helmet, air tank and breathing mask, weigh in at about 40 pounds. Most of the gear is rated to withstand temperatures around 1,200 degrees, but human skin will start to burn around 120 degrees. Hildreth describes the feeling of being in a big fire as “getting hundreds of bee stings throughout your body.” With ceiling level heats around 1,200 to 1,400 degrees and floor heats anywhere from 200 to 250, sometimes firefighters will have to enter a home crawling in on their stomachs.

The suits do allow them to endure blazing heats, but they also limit firefighters too. The tanks on their backs only hold about 20 minutes worth of air, limiting the time inside. If a firefighter gets too caught up in the moment and doesn’t keep track of his or her air supply, then an ear-piercing alarm goes off. The alarm also has a motion sensor on it, going off if it doesn’t feel movement on a regular basis. This allows other firefighters to discover someone has been knocked out due to falling debris.

Finding a lost or passed out firefighter is whole different challenge. At best, a thick haze of smoke will be throughout a house that is burning. At worst, and more often, it’s a smoke-filled blackout. While looking for someone who has fallen inside, firefighters will usually rely on their sense of touch with glove-covered hands. The gloves, of course, will help protect them from the heat and the flames, but they also make it difficult to pick up anything smaller than the size of a pen. This is one of the many reasons firefighters train over and over again to make sure they can function in these environments. They have to be able to save themselves first if they are going to be able to save you.

Not all the situations they find themselves in are tragic. Private Warren Stanley tells one humorous story concerning an incident with a boat at a gas station.

“The guy filled up the gas tank [of the boat] and the Coast Guard had pulled ascending units out of the gas tanks, so he’s filling it up and its just overflowing into the hull of the boat. He put a 187 gallons of fuel in there, about $500 worth of gas!” he said laughing. Stanley had to seal up several of the holes where gas was leaking out, all of course in full gear. HAZMAT was called to the scene along with a private contractor to suck up all the petrol. Although Stanley tells the story with a smile on his face, it would have taken just one spark from the battery of the boat to turn the story tragic.

Despite all the stories and the stress, the men are pretty laid back around the firehouse. The guys tend to their different chores, whether it’s answering the phones, cleaning the floors or helping with the evening meal. The big buzz after dinner is “American Idol.” (It isn’t hard to guess who they were cheering for.) Some of the people work out while others choose to nap. It’s a surprisingly quiet environment as this small, makeshift family waits for disaster to happen.

The second shift is a part of a three-shift system. They spend 24 hours at the fire station, with 48 hours off in between shifts. Working three days a week may appeal to a lot people, but most of us wouldn’t want to be called up randomly at three in the morning to go do our job.

“We’re lucky if we sleep at night at all,” says Jungenberg. The average number of calls at Central after midnight is usually three or four, with really bad nights stacking up to eight. Some of the guys deal with this by catching shorts naps in between, while others just brew the coffee and watch television.

So with all the risk to one’s life and the weird schedule, why do it? Well, some made comments about how some guys are attracted to fire. Others seem to be attracted to the adrenaline rush when they get sent on a call. Of course there is the more altruistic reason for becoming a firefighter, one that all of the men seem to share.

“It’s a very rewarding job,” says Private Stanley. “It’s not a lot of money, but I don’t do it for the money. I do it because I like helping people out.”

Daniel Anderson is a writer and photographer for Lagniappe. E-mail him at dan@danandersonphoto.com

Contact Dan Anderson at dan@lagniappemobile.com.

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