Calls are varied, and there’s always more work to be done

The tone rings.

Firefighters drop everything and dash to their vehicles.

The call could be for anything — a house fire, a car accident or a fall.

“It always seems like there’s something different going on,” said Anacortes firefighter/paramedic Tom Nelson.

They never know when the call will come.

Or what they’ll be doing.

Members of the Anacortes Fire Department respond to calls for medical emergencies and fires. But what do they do when the city is quiet?

On Thursday, Aug. 14, I spent the afternoon with Lt. James Wireman, an Anacortes firefighter/paramedic. It was a slow day for calls but the firefighters on duty had plenty to keep them busy.

Their day starts with apparatus checks at 8 a.m. Firefighters make sure everything is in good condition — fluid levels, emergency lights, battery levels and supplies.

“You have to make sure you have all the supplies in case someone had a busy night and overlooked something,” Wireman said.

That includes the more than 40 different drugs and narcotics kept in the medic units, including generic cardiac medications, painkillers, paralytics and sedatives.

It takes about 30 minutes to check each vehicle.

They also do weekly checks of all other equipment, like chain saws and the jaws of life.

The firefighters then coordinate between the stations for any training that needs to get done. And there are always hydrant inspections (about 650) and ongoing business inspections as well as station cleaning and errands.

“That’s what we’re here for, little or big,” Wireman said.

Wireman, who in July marked 10 years with the department, started at 8 a.m. that Thursday morning and was on duty until 8 a.m. the next day.

He didn’t know what his shift would hold.

The previous day, the shift answered 14 calls. By the end of the morning, Wireman hadn’t received any.

“That’s what’s weird about this job but also good. You’re not in this cookie-cutter type job,” he said.

And it’s not a cushy job, either, with employees putting in 50-hour weeks.

“You’re the people who run into a house that’s on fire and all the hazards we have to deal with,” Wireman said. “Most people don’t have to get up at two, three, four in the morning to deal with other people’s problems.”

Anacortes firefighters say being roused in the middle of the night is just part of the job — and they’re used to not getting as much sleep at work.

“I usually shoot out of bed trying to find my pants and socks before I know where I am,” Nelson said.

After 5 p.m. the firefighters are considered on standby. If there are no calls to answer they play Xbox video games, read books, rent movies or watch games on TV.

But from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every shift there’s a lot to get done.

1:19 p.m.

Wireman rolls out a hose and connects it to a waiting fire truck as the five other firefighters on duty help prepare to test the department’s hoses at Mount Erie Elementary School.

They started testing hoses Tuesday and hope to finish by the afternoon. Tests are done annually.

Three medic units and two fire trucks are parked in the school lot in case they get a call.

1:23 p.m.

The tone rings for a fuel spill on Highway 20 and Reservation Road.

Nelson and Brian Dodds grab their gear from a medic unit and hop into a fire truck to answer the call.

The dispatcher relays the basic information — someone reported about four gallons of hydraulic fluid was leaked onto the highway. The truck, with two seats in front and four in back, has headsets like on an airplane so everyone can talk to each other over the noise of the sirens.

Dodds uses the lights the entire drive but uses the sirens only when there is heavy traffic.

“During the daytime in the city you pretty much have (the sirens) on all the time,” he later explained.

As they approach the area, both are looking for the spill and for the offending vehicle.

“Looks like the westbound side,” Nelson said.

“You see it already?” Dodds asks.

“Maybe not,” Nelson said. “I’m not seeing anything right offhand. We’ll that’s where they spilled.”

They pass a spill along the right-hand side of the highway, continuing to see if they can find the leaking vehicle.

“Looks like they just dumped it and took off,” Dodds said as he drives up Padilla Heights Road and back to the spill.

“I don’t think that’s even worthy of putting spill absorbent on,” Nelson said.

Dodds turns the truck around and blocks the right lane so they can get a closer look. Donning orange traffic vests, Dodds pours absorbent on the heaviest spill areas while Nelson uses a broom to spread it out.

1:54 p.m.

Dodds and Nelson head back to the main station at 13th Street to pick up more absorbent.

On the way, Nelson explained it depends on the call what he’s thinking on the way.

“You’ve got a million things going through your head,” he said. “Every call’s different.”

If it’s a structure fire he’s thinking about where hydrants are and what kind of strategy to use. Manpower is one of the main things he thinks about no matter what the call.

If it’s a medical call the information they get is “only as reliable as the information dispatched,” he said.

They usually know how many patients to expect but they’re always wondering how bad the injuries are and what kind of equipment they will need.

“The first ambulance is doing triage and evaluating who’s going to be taken out first,” he said.

When Nelson and Dodds left the training to go on the call, two other firefighters went back to the station to pick up another fire truck.

“We have to be thinking if we have enough apparatus to respond,” Nelson said.

At station 1, the two reload bags of absorbent into the truck from a storage shed out back. Inside there’s also paint, extra hoses, tools and air masks.

2:16 p.m.

Nelson and Dodds arrive back at the school, where the other four firefighters on duty are cleaning up after finishing the hose testing.

Wireman, Chris Brown and Ben Oliver roll up the hoses and return them to the back of a city pickup truck while Brandon Lowry disconnects everything from the hydrant.

The department’s ladder truck needed maintenance, so Wireman and Brown drive to the city shops to drop it off.

Wireman said shift work is a bonus for his family — firefighters work three of five days then get four days off.

“My family loves it. It works great for us,” he said.

Wireman’s wife works at Anacortes High School and they have two kids, a 15-year-old and an 8-year-old.

But having an unusual schedule does have its downsides.

“People don’t want to accommodate shift work,” Wireman said.

For example, some day cares require you to pay for all five days, even if you only drop the kids off for two.

“I want them to be with me the other days,” he said.

Wireman said weekends can be dull around the station but “everybody has projects.”

He is getting photos of all the businesses with sprinkler systems so everyone knows where the connection is.

Paramedics are also required to do 50 hours of continuing education each year, so quiet times are good to study or take online courses.

When off-duty, Wireman said everyone carries an alpha pager with them and they all have radio pagers at home.

“Yesterday I was working on a fence and heard the alarm and came into the station,” he said.

He picked up a vehicle and headed for a motorcycle crash that had been called in.

“You don’t have to come in. I could have stayed home,” he said.

But the department tries to get as many people to a scene as possible. If they come in from off-duty they get paid a call-in wage.

“The money’s nice but it does come with costs. It does take a toll,” Wireman said.

For example, he could go to a fire at 11 p.m. and be up all night and then have to work a shift the next morning.

But no matter how little sleep they get or how many calls they go on, Wireman said you have to be “on.”

“You have to have a positive outlook and treat everyone like family,” he said.

You might have a night where you treat a man who might lose his leg from a car accident to a child who fell off a chair and has a bruise on his head.

“You have to be very emotionally prepared. You have to treat the DUI guy the same as the granny who fell walking across the street,” Wireman said.

About 75 percent of the job is paramedic related. On a normal call they take a med box and bag, which include most of the basic equipment they need.

Wireman said they get a lot of ground level falls and other calls that are related to elderly patients.

“You just run the gamete. It’s more medical than trauma,” he said.

3:04 p.m.

Wireman arrives back at the station and backs the medic unit into its stall.

He and the other five firefighters unload the hoses that were tested earlier in the day and return them to a rack at the back of the station.

The back wall is covered in lockers — one for each employee.

Wireman opens his and takes out his supplies: boots, an extra uniform, his fire jacket, his helmet and his fire boots with bunker pants ready to slip into. In the pockets are a hose strap, gloves, a flashlight, a pad of paper and a pen in a plastic bag and several tools.

“I’ve learned gas lines and things like that, you never know when you need tools,” he said.

Without an air pack the equipment weighs about 25 pounds. Add the air pack and it’s up to 60 pounds of gear.

Downstairs there is a training room, medical supplies room and workout equipment.

The training room has “tiny town,” a scale model of downtown Anacortes the department uses to set up scenarios. Cotton balls painted in orange, yellow and black represent fire and smoke. Tiny cars, including medic units and fire trucks, are scattered on the table.

“It allows us to walk through strategies,” Wireman said.

Looking at the model, he says sometimes the job is frustrating.

Due to safety laws, firefighters can’t go in a burning building until backup units get there. He said that can be hard to explain to people.

“People’s property is on fire,” he said.

A few doors down is a room with medical supplies. It is mostly filled with old files and old equipment. With Island Hospital’s recent renovation, the department now has a room there with medical supplies.

Firefighters are encouraged to work out every shift, either in the downstairs gym or at Thrive Community Fitness.

The second floor of the main station has offices and sleeping quarters.

The lieutenant on duty has a room with a single bed plus an office area with a desk and computer. Three other bedrooms have three beds and dressers each. Because the department has three shifts, nobody has to share a room.

The top floor has a large meeting room, living room/kitchen area and a library with training materials and computers.

“Meal time here is not like what people fantasize about or see on TV,” Wireman said.

With two people on duty at the station, they generally bring leftovers or supplies to cook dinner.

Wednesday they have volunteer drills and often all eat together.

“Those are the more fun times,” he said.

The third-floor library area is where the firefighters do paperwork after a medical call. They record the patient’s medical history, what the problem was, what they saw, record vital signs, what the cause of the problem was and the treatment plan. Everything has to be recorded.

“If you give oxygen, how much, how did the patient react, how did you administer it,” Wireman said.

4:07 p.m.

Wireman and Brown take time to run some errands — picking up laundry and medical supplies.

“Depending on what’s going on these errands can pile up,” Wireman said.

They leave in a medic unit and let the others on duty know if there is a call to respond with a fire truck.

“It would look really bad if the fire department drove by (a fire) to get a truck,” Wireman said.

The two picked up three bags of laundry, including towels and uniforms, that were dropped off earlier in the week for cleaning.

“Last week must have been a dirty week,” Wireman said.

On the drive to the hospital, he said most of the firefighters get along with each other.

“I’m pretty happy with the guys I work with,” he said. “We have a good time on our shift.”

Most personalities mesh well, but it’s inevitable that there are conflicts sometimes.

“The reality is there’s 20 people and personalities sometimes don’t mix,” he said.

As long as it doesn’t affect their work, Wireman said people sometimes just avoid each other.

“Station 1 is a big station,” he said.

But for the most part, they genuinely like one another. Earlier in August, Wireman and Lowry took RVs to Washington Park for a campout. About a half dozen off-duty personnel came by to hang out around the campfire.

4:18 p.m.

Wireman and Brown return to the station and take the laundry upstairs to put away.

“Sometimes we’re janitors then we work for a Laundromat,” Wireman joked.

He ripped open the bag of towels and started piling them in a linen closet near the bedrooms.

Brown distributed pants and shirts to the bedrooms. Each has the firefighter’s initials on the tag to tell them apart.

The rooms are slightly disheveled looking. Brown’s closet has uniforms and shower items. His bedside dresser holds a pile of books, including one on the Mayflower and another about Fiji, where he plans to travel in September.

4:30 p.m.

Brown heads downstairs to work out as Wireman completes reports on the computer.

At the end of each day, they print out the logbook that contains everything they’ve done.

Training and medical reports are also tracked on the computer.

Wireman said there isn’t really one case that stands out as his most memorable.

“The most recent ones turn into the most memorable,” he said.

5:17 p.m.

Wireman finishes his computer work.

He plans to figure out dinner, call his family and work out.

Unless the tone rings.

Fire Department at a glance

2008 Budget
$2.74 million

Staff
20 career staff, including six lieutenants
Three commanders, including the chief

Entry salary
Firefighter/EMT $53,575
Firefighter/paramedic $59,528

Stations
1 — Main station at 1016 13th St. Staffed 24 hours.
2 — West end station at 5209 Sunset Drive near the ferry terminal. Staffed 24 hours.
3 — New station opened last September at 9029 Molly Lane. Staffed 12 hours, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Shifts
Most work 24-hour shifts with the two EMTs working 12-hour shifts.
Career staff work three of five days then get four days off.
Generally there are seven people working each day — three at station 1 and two at the other stations.

Visit http://www.cityofanacortes.org/fire.htm.