Brotherhood fighting for a comeback!

I've been thinking a lot lately about what a few members of the Department have been discussing lately about trying to bring the brotherhood back into the Department... It's not completely gone, three of the four stations work together and now even a few members of the fourth are realizing that being number one isn't at a single location; it's about being one unified Department. It's been a long time since this Department was able to work together harmoniously off a fire scene and I'm loving the direction we are going right now, so my question is "How do you bring brotherhood back into a Department after it's been gone for so many years?"

I read an article I found on firehouse.com recently that I would love to share with you especially two of the paragraphs. The title of the article is called "What is our Brotherhood?" and it is written by Dr. Harry R. Carter who is an amazing staff writer for firehouse.com

He wrote about brotherhood: "You cannot turn it on and off, or share with some folks and not others. You are either a part of the Brotherhood, or an imposter dressing in firefighting garb. The all-encompassing nature of Brotherhood is one aspect of being a part of the fire service that seems to be increasingly overlooked by the members of our service.

Trust me when I say that this is a battle and it is not always a young against the old sort of conflict. It is about a lack of respect for the proud traditions that have carried us this far. It is about a respect for people, past and present, living and dead. Any time that I witness or experience some place where there is an absence of respect, I feel that I am experiencing an environment totally devoid of any spirit of Brotherhood."

My favorite part of this is the second paragraph where he writes that the lack of brotherhood is from a lack of respect for people, past and present, living and dead; and how it's also about a lack of tradition. This is so true in our Department and I pray that it changes soon and people see that tradition needs to continue the way it currently has and learn how to work together as a Department and come up with ideas the whole Department is on board with. Not just change things because one small group feels it's time for change, but because the whole Department feels it's time for change. We all are adults working to do the same job in the same community and it's important for us to work together as a brotherhood on and off the fire scene; to better serve the community and ourselves. Brotherhood is a tradition that is lost and is fighting it's way back into our Department.

Crisis Averted!

I'm so glad the Lord heard my prayers and didn't create mass devastation to our City. We did some minor pumping of a few river front homes and business on Saturday evening but nothing major to write home about. I honestly feel bad for those people sometimes... they live and work on a River that for the most part was what used to be a 50 year flood producer that has become an almost every year occurrence for the past 5 years. It's getting ridiculous.

Rain Rain Go Away!

So yet another storm is expected to hit us tonight (Wednesday) and continue into Friday morning. If the river wasn't high enough as it is, we are expected to add another 3 to 4 inches of rain to that. I'm already getting OEM updates and have prepared our pumps for the impending doom. But more stressful than that... Our 29th Annual Lenten Fish Fry starts this Friday, so now I get to try and become GOD for a day and split my manpower. If I could only clone people to be in two places at once. It's sure going to be an interesting few days of evacuations, Pumping and Cooking Fish! LOL I will keep you posted on the may lay.
Delaware River please recede faster so that you can consume the impending doom and save the residences of Lambertville from having to pull their belongs from their homes again and save my father from pulling multiple boilers on the river again.
Here's for hoping a miracle happens.

Late Call

By: Cynthia Tillett (Me)

We arrive on scene,

flames rolling out the roof and third floor windows.

A feeling of fear and excitement overcomes me.

I am doing what I was trained to do.

I stand with the knob in my hand looking, looking for someone to back me up.

They come and I open the knob,

One hundred and twenty pounds of pressure,

push me back, throw me back.

I loose my balance and my partner steedys me.

We stabilize and continue to extinguish the flaming inferno.

Suddenly a cry silences us,

ten foot flames rolling out the front door;

my partner and I run, line in hand hell bound for the front door.

We arrive and drop the line, don our masks and prepare to go in.

As we advance the line into the flame consumed building

nothing enters my mind; I am there to do my job.

There are flames over our heads, like hundred of rolling barrels.

The whole floor above us is on fire.

The intense heat pushes us to the floor.

We inch closer and closer to the flaming steps.

I crank the knob on and begin to extinguish what I can...

The fire is getting the best of us.

The Mayday siren wails outside, it's time to get out.

As we get outside and away from the building

we can see that the second and third floor are now completely engulfed in flames.

The only way to fight this fire is from the exterior now.

We battle the blaze for hours,

families stand around holding each other,

looking at the rubble that used to be their home.

After we pack up our equipment we head to the station.

When we get there we hang our gear to dry in silence.

Then we all go home too our families.

Lying in bed, not knowing if we almost didn't make it home.

We live to see another day.

We fight what you fear,

We are firefighters!

(I wrote this in high school for an English project, I was GREEN then so please understand and be kind.)

New Post with Fireworks!

Well I've been away from Blogging for a while and thats because of Political reasons (and no I'm not running for office). Politics in the fire service really take the fun out of blogging for me. But, I've decided to do what makes me happy and share with all of you my experiences and funny stories and not let the politics get to me.

I figured that I would keep this first post short because I want to focous on getting my next one completed and up before tomorrow. So I will leave you with some photo's from the other night at our fireworks standby.


They just keep getting better and better.

When it's ok to be a Goober!

I've learned that a little fun can make a monotonous task go a lot quicker in the fire service. I believe that one of the reasons why I've excelled so far is because I'm not afraid to make fun of the "Pink Elephant" in the room and still work at getting a task done. If you take everything seriously and do everything by the book you will get burnt out fast; and on the flip side, if you take everything to lightly someone will get hurt.
So how do you find the fine line, the happy medium so to speak?
I keep playing an old country song in my head every time I think about it... (which is really weird and delightfully interesting at the same time) "You've got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, and know when to run." The meaning behind this is simple... you just have to "know" where the line is, and try not to cross it.

Hold true to your values, and always be able to stand behind why you did something the way you did it. (Here is a picture from a Drill I taught at my firehouse one muggy summer evening last year, sorry if the pics are kind of blurry).




The drill was called "Who's your buddy" the object was to teach the members how to hook up to the buddy breathing port on our SCBA. I first went over the packs basic functions as a refresher, then I went through the hook up process and had everyone try it while it was on the table to get a feel for it and to refresh their memories. Then we all donned our turnout gear, put on our packs. To make things a little more "fun" I decided to hook all of us up to ONE bottle; then we walked around the neighborhood as a "unit" to see how long it took all 5 of us to go through one bottle. Once that bottle was finished, we came back into the firehouse and I taught each of them some breathing techniques which would allow them to conserve more air; we then switched to another bottle and did another "walk about" to give everyone a chance to work on their new breathing technique (as a group we lasted twice as long as we did on the first bottle). It was a great success and I've been asked to repeat the drill again this year.


So I challenge each and everyone of you out there to think outside the proverbial box and explore new teaching techniques and always remember that "my teaching techniques may be different and un-orthodox, but the information is still the same." If you have a drill, or an interesting way you teach a certain topic in the fire service I would love to hear about it, and I'm sure my other readers would too so please share!

I will leave you with a photo, this photo is just one of our crazy good times, but it really sums up the fun we have on a weekly basis. (This photo was taken during the flood of 2006, my Lieutenant and I were trying to pass the time while waiting for a basement to pump out and this shows exactly how much fun we had!)

Unique is a style in firefighting!

I've been thinking about this a lot today... what makes you unique in the fire service? Everyone has an idiosyncrasy, or if your like me you have a few. I know this may sound weird but I carry a pair of socks in my turnout gear; and now I probably have you laughing or thinking that I'm a strange character but believe it or not they can be used for more than just on your feet. However, I can assure you that there sole reason is for my feet, but I've adopted some other uses in the fire service that prove to be handy...



1.) I've used them as a rag before... I can actually say that I've gone through a lot of socks in my turn out gear but they're not expensive, if you buy in bulk that is; and they are great after a fire to use as a rag and wipe your brow (if no rags are available).

2.) I've used this one as well: A place to store my Lieutenants Glasses while he was in a building for safe keeping. Best if the socks are clean! (I've actually lost his glasses once on a fire scene and someone accidentally cracked them, I felt really bad so I adapted and overcame by coming up with a way to protect them while in my pocket and making sure I didn't loose them ever again).

3.) If something falls apart (small pieces of equipment) you can use the sock to store the pieces in so nothing gets lost. (I've used this before for screws that worked there way out of some equipment on a fire scene, I knew if I put them on the tail board they would be a goner for sure, so I put them in my handy dandy pair of socks and they were safe until we returned back to station).

4.) A tourniquet (Band aid Pusher in me) Luckily I haven't had to use this one yet, and hopefully I never will.

5.) If someone cuts there hand and you need a quick dressing before EMS can tend to you. (again Band aid pusher coming out, LOL) And unfortunately I've used this technique on myself; it really helps prevent any debris from entering the wound.

I've used them for more than the above listed but I would be interested in hearing from you and what you could use them for or if you want to share what makes you unique, comment me back and let me know.

P.S.: I don't keep the socks in the same pocket as my gloves either; we have to keep them clean in case they are needed in a medical situation.

1st Blog Carnival

I have been published on the "1st Due Blog Carnival" hosted by firecritic.com check out the link below to see other amazing fire/ ems bloggers. Interesting to read why others became firefighters. Can't wait till the next one!

First Due Blog Carnival Episode 1 "I am a firefighter because"

Thank you "FireCritic.com"

I'm giving a HUGE Thank you to www.firecritic.com for the post on the "Quick Knock Down in Fort Worth", we have a meeting on Wednesday with the Fire Commission and this video is going to show why we need a C.A.F.S. system in our City! Maybe then they will think twice about all their negative publicity about us not needing a new Class A pumper.
Here is the link to Fire Critics blog post

CO Alarms on my Mind

This has been an amazing weekend... Saturday was our annual Department Fire Banquet and an interesting thing happened... I stood up to give my Captains award to one of our eldest members and hardest working and I was taken aback by our whole company being called up by the Chief of the Department. Then when I got up there to grab the mic the Chief handed it to my Lieutenant (in my mind I was saying OK, I'm going to be presenting the award to him and our company minus this person knew already this was coming.) And out of no where my Lieutenant tells me that I am the recipient of the Captains Award! I was completely shocked and humbled at the same time. I don't think that a Captains award has been given to it's own Captain without them knowing it, one for the record books I guess.

Sunday was another eventful day, the Hubby and I woke up extremely early for a Sunday and headed to the squad so I could put up a new fence for them. My husband was an amazing helper as well as the inmates who came in to help "weekend wonders". They busted their asses today and it was much appreciated. Fence looks gorgeous and I'm still waiting for the critics to roll in. (there are always a few)

And now to what I like to say is a GREAT feeling, literally about an hour ago we were dispatched for a CO alarm activation just down the street from our firehouse. I arrived to the building first, opened the bays and began gearing up. My father (the new Deputy Chief of our Company / Department- very long story) as well as my Grandfather. We get on the truck and respond... of course only being just down the street we were first on scene, packed up and proceeded to the house to receive our orders. My great feeling comes when my father and I enter the building together; I can honestly tell you that in my 12 + years experience the last time we entered a building together was when I was in fire school!
Of course we opened the basement windows, turned off the heater, opened the rear door and put a fan in the front door to try and evacuate the remaining CO so that the homeowners could go back to bed. Simple call but a really good one to say the very least.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend.
I'm going to be doing some research on some past fires and get some elder members recollection of those days, I can't wait to post them.