Fire In Ice

In the dead of night... Boredom strikes.

2011-11-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a creature of habit. . . Which is odd, being a first responder, because I never seem to be doing the same thing. Every day that I go to work, I have no idea what to expect, and I dig that.
It's been a really bizarre few months, I've been working pretty much non-stop since August between the Fire Department and an Occupational Health and Safety company that I do contracts for.
Right now I'm in the process of certifying for Firefighter 2, finally! There has been an obscure series of circumstances that have kept me from getting this certification in the last 4 years, but the time has come.
I was thinking about it the other day, and it's been months since I've been on a structure fire. Pretty much every time I'm on shift these days its a silent night. I did save a guys life the other day, though! That was pretty cool. I was riding Engine and we got there 5 minutes before the ambulance. We resuscitated our patient with CPR and an AED... All BLS! Is was an excellent example of fast action and quick response working out.
In other news, I've found my niche. I've been following around the Fire Investigator for our department for the past 6 months like a puppy-sponge. IE: I follow him everywhere absorbing knowledge... and he can't kick me to the curb 'cus I'm just so darn innocent. and fluffy. But I digress.
So, now I know what I want to be when I grow up. I'm taking the classes to certify as a Fire Investigation/Building Inspection Officer right now, and I LOVE it. It's really neat, because a Fire Investigator's first job is to find out whether or not a crime has been committed. From there on, they get to follow every step of the investigatory process to completion. They get to interview witnesses, interrogate suspects, go to autopsies, collect evidence, do forensics and crime scene photography... It's like being you're own detective agency, except with fire! Plus, I can still be a firefighter and an investigator, so it's the best of both worlds. Being a firefighter/investigator means that I can show up at the fire first in, put it out, then find the cause and origin. Having the knowledge of a firefighter on scene will be super beneficial because I will see have seen the fire in action and won't have to piece together the puzzle afterward. Most importantly, I'm looking for a challenge. At this point, I can fight a fire... It's not hard anymore. I still love it, don't get me wrong, but I would really like to be able to put my brain to work a little bit more... And I feel like the investigation side is a great fit.
To follow-up on the past few months... I didn't get onto AFD. I made it through the written and physical, but I didn't make it through the interview. Let's just say I'm not surprised. I'm almost done with my degree and that will be really nice to have. Also, married life is awesome. I just got back from Vegas again a week ago, we finally finished cleaning out my grandmother's house. I'm really looking forward to things slowing down in the near future. I've had 80+ hour work weeks the past 3 months with pretty much no days off, plus college, plus additional training, and a bunch of recertification problems that I'm still dealing with. Hopefully, I can go back to my easy life of just one job and college soon and enjoy the holidays with my little family.
That's it for now. I'll try to keep up on this thing, but we all know how that goes.
-Jess

I've said it once, and I'l say it again...

2011-07-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

Man I love being a turtle.
Not really, what I was going to say was yeah, I'm a terrible blogger. I go through phases, and I'm trying to do this one again.
You should see my journal, I bought it in Seattle and I write in it pretty much whenever I'm in an airport, which lately has been once a month or so.
This year has been busy, so rather than go back and explain where I've been and what I've been doing, I figured I would just pick right back up with where I'm at. So... Here goes!

I just heard my husband say from the kitchen, "Oh hey, while I was cleaning the other day I found Princess Leia's hair."
...
Now what's odd about this is not that he said that, but that after a few seconds I knew exactly what he was talking about, and this followed:
"Oh, where was it?"
"Under the fridge, I think it had something to do with a certain Newt."
So that's my life. We have lego magnets and Princess Leia has been bald for months, our Cat, Rebecca -- but everyone calls her Newt (get it?? get it??), has a habit of tearing them off and playing with them in the middle of the night.
Alas, we have come to realize that all of our pets are insane.

In other news, I am testing with the big bad Anchorage Fire Department in 3 days. I've passed my written and have been selected to go through the second step in the huge process and go to the Physical Ability Test (PAT). If I pass it, which I intent to, it's on to a behavioral analysis test (BPAD) and an oral board. If I pass that it's on to a Chief's interview. If I pass that it's a psych test. If I pass that it's a psych interview. If I pass that, I get accepted into the academy and the real work begins. If I pass that, then I get to be a probationary firefighter on AFD for a year. If I pass that, then I'll be an Anchorage Firefighter. *wipes sweat off forehead* Needless to say, not many people make it through on their first try, but I'll give it a go.

I just got back from 120o weather in Las Vegas. I headed down there to clean out my Grandmother's Estate... I got some nifty stuff! Like a record/8-track player. I've never even seen an 8-track, but after half an hour or so I was playing Neil Diamond 8Tracks and Beatles LP's. It. Was. Awesome.
I also learned how to gamble, as I recently turned 21... Also, awesome. I had a blast hanging with my mother playing black jack until all hours of the morning. It was a good time.

Well, that's just about it. I'll try and keep up with this whole blogging bit, but no promises.

Until next time,
Jess

Firefighter wedding pictures

2010-08-28T14:15:00.001-07:00

Out of retirement and blogging again!

2010-08-28T14:08:00.001-07:00

I just realized how long it's been since I made an entry and I apologize to anyone who actually reads this. I got married last month and it has taken up an absurd amount of time!
In other news, dare I say it?, it's been really slow at work lately! Haven't been on a fire in 5 months which could be closely related to planning a wedding and therefore not working as much.
In any case, Wednesday I'm leaving for a road trip down the west coast for a few weeks and when I get back I'm working for a week straight. . . Hopefully something postable will happen.
Until then,
Jess

News Article on our fatality

2010-02-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

I was the first Water Rescue Member on scene for this.

Worker dies in icy water

BY TODD L. DISHER
Frontiersman
Published on Thursday, February 18, 2010 6:42 PM AKST
HOUSTON — Unable to escape the cab, a man died Wednesday night when the tree cutting tractor he was operating broke through the ice covering a muskeg swamp.

Jack E. Forshee III was running the hydro-ax machine for Alaska Hydro-Ax Land Clearing, cutting trees for Matanuska Electric Association in a power line easement a mile and a half off the Parks Highway near Mile 62.5.

The emergency responders got the call from the other member of the two-man crew just before 5 p.m. Willow Fire Chief Lance Barve said the rig broke through the ice and the cab was almost completely submerged. The doors were blocked by the ice.

Due to the lack of road access, members of the Mat-Su Dive Rescue Team were driven in on snowmachines. Barve said they were using axes and chainsaws to try and break the ice around the cab. After 50 minutes on the scene, the driver was still trapped.

About 6 p.m., the call came over the radio that the operation had turned into a body recovery.

Once that call is made, said West Lakes Fire Chief Bill Gamble, everything slows down. Safety of the responders becomes the primary concern, he said, and a more methodical approach is taken to get the worker out.

The other worker on the crew — whose machine also broke through, but in shallower water — was uninjured.

Cliff Silvers, the chief of the water rescue team, said the swamp was invisible under the snow cover. Unless the water sources are marked before the winter, it is impossible to tell where they are, he said Thursday morning.

The water in the swamp is high in iron oxide, Silvers said. Iron oxide means weak ice regardless of the temperature, he said.

“The simple fact of that heavy of a machine and that rotten ice, it just fell through. It’s just one of those one in a thousand things,” Silvers said.

When they got the call, Silvers said, they were severely limited by the location of the incident. Snowmachines were the only access to the site, which limited responders to basically hand tools, he said. In fact, Silvers had to command his team over the radio from the Parks Highway.

Frank Kirk, the water rescue deputy chief on-scene, said he and the first divers arrived at the site about 45 minutes after the call came out. About three or four inches of the front portion of the cab was out of the water, but inspecting the other machine told them the roof was eight to 10 inches thick. The windshield was made of half-inch thick bullet-resistant material, he said.

The ice around the hydro-ax was two feet thick in some places, and the water underneath was eight to 10 feet deep, Kirk said. The other crew-member said he attempted to clear the ice sheets away from the door, but even the team of rescuers could not move the ice, he said.

Surface rescuers were eventually able to cut a portion of the ice away from the door. A diver felt his way around the zero-visibility water, found the door handle, and opened the door.

If an air bubble had been released, revival efforts would have been done immediately, Kirk said. No such bubble was seen.

The body was brought to the surface about an hour and a half after the call came in, Kirk said.

While the water rescue crew was working, the medics on-scene were relaying information to the medical director at Mat-Su Regional Hospital. Based on how long he had been under and the temperature of the water, the hospital pronounced Forshee dead about an hour after the call came in, Kirk said.

The body was taken to the state medical examiner to determine the cause of death. Hypothermia can be fatal in as little as 45 minutes, Kirk said, and drowning can happen much faster.

Pulling ceiling with a chain saw and other fun adventures

2010-02-13T03:57:00.001-08:00

It's structure fire season right now. We've had 6 fires in 2 weeks, it's been keeping us on our toes. My most recent adventure began at 1:30 in the morning and went on until 7:00.
Sunday night after the superbowl after I picked up my parents from the airport and was headed home, we got a page to send some tankers to a fellow fire service area and help fight a fire. By god, this house was built like a tank. In the ceiling where one would normally find sheetrock, was 3/4" plywood. Have you ever tried to go through plywood with a pike pole?!? It was ridiculous! By the time we got there, the fire had gutted the entire house, but it was still structurally sound. After a while we got sick of trying with the poles and just got out the stihl. This house was classic "Alaskan Construction" which means it was very custom, and in this case, overbuilt. From a homeowner's standpoint, the house was a dream, there was insulation in every crack and crevice and in an earthquake, the thing wouldn't even shutter. From a firefighter's point of view IT WAS A NIGHTMARE!!
Well, that's all for now, just thought I'd share the news to you fellow firefighters out there... Just be grateful you don't live up here. Alaska: The land where your tools don't work.
-Jess

Just Call Me the Savior of All Things Cute and Fuzzy

2010-02-04T05:30:00.001-08:00

Slew o' Structure fires the last few days!
Two of awesome note:

First fire was last Saturday evening where I got to rescue two cats, a dog, and a chinchilla. However, among the fatalities at the afore mentioned fire were two hermit crabs, two dogs, and a snake. I was there far longer than I should have been helping out with the investigation, but in the end it was a very good save as we stopped the fire from spreading to the rest of the house and kept it contained to the room it was in.
Tonight, just moments ago we had another fire. I was on the first in crew and for the first time in a while,I was the senior most firefighter, aside from the officer, on the engine. When it came time to pull the line and put out the fire I was actually doing something, rather than backing up the senior firefighter. Among the more disconcerting events of the fire was my first serious close call. I was up on the ladder, about two stories high, trying to pry off a piece of siding when the ice that had built up beneath the ladder from the hose stream caused the entire ladder to shift halfway off the wall. I was locked in at the time, and if that ladder had gone down, I would have gone all the way to the ground with it. Luckily, I was able to grab the hole I had just cut with the saw and keep both the ladder and myself in place. The Chief said "That's the kind of thing that keeps you young!" I'm not sure exactly how to interpret that, but lets just say I don't want to go flying off the side of the wall anytime soon. Otherwise, the fire was an awesome save! The crew got in just in time to stop it from extending into the attic space and burning off the roof. We stopped it on the outer edge of the wall and saved the people's home! It was really great!
Now it's 4:30am and I've got an hour and a half left on my shift... I'm hoping for a peaceful end to my shift, but can't guarantee anything.
Until Next Time,
Jess

And I continue to be very bad at blogging.

2010-01-30T03:21:00.001-08:00

Nothing is new. I hate to say it, but it's true.
It's actually been surprisingly warm recently and we haven't had hardly any fires. We had a windstorm there at the beginning of January, but it has all blown over now (pun!) and things have been pretty darn slow.
I have been waiting to get the test results back from my written exam on my EMT, but the practical is out of the way and completed. Currently I'm doing college and having a grand old time (NOT!). I'm busy as heck, but not as busy as I could be.
I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology 2 and a lab with that, also taking a required speech class, English 2, and a Medical Terminology class that is supposedly self taught, but I haven't begun that yet.
Wedding plans are going reasonably well. David and I have decided to buy everything we can as cheap as possible rather than rent and then hopefully make some money renting stuff out later. The other day we bought 200 restaurant chairs, 40 tables, a dance floor, table linens, 200 glasses, and some shelves for $1700. My sister/mom found this restaurant liquidation place that was at the end of it's sale, we scored. To rent chairs was $7 each, tables was $12 (we got them for 10), and to rent a dance floor was $350 (We got a $4000 floor for $150!!!) It was awesome!
Anyway, I'll write more when there is more. Until then...
-Jess

I'm a bad blogger, but I'm ok with that.

2010-01-07T02:11:00.000-08:00

Frankly, I've just been too darn busy with life to torture my followers with an update recently.
However, I intend to start updating more frequently. Really, there hasn't been a whole lot going on!
I did finish my EMT class and am waiting for that certification after I tie up a few embarrassing loose ends on that end. I also finished (and passed!) the first half of my A&P and English classes, so that's exciting!
On Monday I go back to school and I'm both looking forward to and dreading it simultaneously.
David and I did go on an awesome vacation to the Bahamas and had a total blast! Be jealous because we did nothing productive and then went to Disney World! It. Was. Awesome!
Now my wedding is sneaking up on me quickly and I have that to plan a documentary to put together for the 2009 awards ceremony. So! Here we go!
When something exciting happens, I'll be sure to write about it.
-Jess

More firefighter engagement pictures...

2009-11-20T00:10:00.001-08:00

Firefighter Engagement Photos....

2009-11-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

More to come, but I thought I'd show these off. My awesome friend John Borland took these engagement pictures of my ring in a hand vario... For you non-FD types, that's a hand pump mini jaws of life type thing.
Check it out.

Field Trip!

2009-11-16T01:32:00.000-08:00

Well, it finally happened, it's starting to act like Alaska up here. The temperature is currently at -15F below O, the roads are covered in ice, and for a lucky few it’s time to start fighting fires.

Take yesterday for example. The day was going slow, I was in the first part of my Strategy and Tactics Class for Officers. We were burning down houses on paper to develop our oh-so-awesome leadership skills and the tones went out for a structure fire just like the one sitting in front of us! So we went on a 5 hour field trip. The fire was a typical bread and butter fire for our area, a "custom" Alaskan home as we like to put it. There were 3 floors, log frame with some plywood and some other unique construction techniques, since my entire strategy and tactics class came we had an engine and a tanker on scene staffed with 12 people in minutes. I was first engine in, so my friend Richard and I grabbed the first pre-connect 1 3/4" line off the truck and started knocking down the fire from the outside. Once we got a good knock on it, we made entry on the first floor, knocked down the fire in the first room, saved a bunch of bedrooms, and made it possible for the next crew to hit the second floor as well as the loft above that. We had a good knock on the fire and within minutes we had a crew on the roof doing vertical ventilation and cutting a good sized hole up there. It was a textbook save, we couldn't have gotten there faster. We ran into a few problems along the way, like our CAFS (compressed air foam system for you non-FD types) failed on us in the beginning so it took a little longer to make sure the fire was good and knocked down. We didn't realize how cold it was and accidently fully shut down one of our preconnects for about 10 minutes... We came back it was frozen and squirting out CAFS like shaving cream. Otherwise, it was a dandy fire and a great save! John Borland took some pictures (below)... Enjoy!

-Jess

I love my job. End of discussion.

2009-11-06T01:51:00.000-08:00

I can't express how lucky I am to have a job I love. Sure, the pay sucks, but that's what you get for job satisfaction.
Today has been a busy day. I woke up to a multiple vehicle collision which I ran down to the station and stood by for. Nothing too exciting out of that one. I then ran a few errands and came back to the station for a trailer house that was on fire, it was burnt to the ground so the owner told us he'd take care of it. I ran home and came back with my stuff for shift tonight.
I did an interview with a couple of captains for my research paper on firefighter fatalities. I got some good stuff from that... Then the insanity began!
We got a page for a wreck where a poor girl collided with a state trooper... Of all the cars to hit, you pick a trooper, good going! We got a code green on that one and before we could even get our bunker gear off we got called out for a medic assist for a pregnant woman having severe complications. We got there, loaded her in the ambulance, and I narrowly saved my hand from her not-too-friendly dog. Right after we got back from that call we got paged out for a wreck where I finally got to use my new rescue technician skills! We got there, cribbed it, busted out the glass, took the doors, and then cut the roof out. We did a reasonably quick extrication for having two rescue tech rookies on scene. Mark and I were really glad that our first real wreck wasn't huge and we were able to extricate the patient without them screaming bloody murder the whole time. As I was walking to the scene I was carrying a box of cribbing (a tub full of wood, weighs about 30lbs) that was blocking my view of my footing... As I stepped off the embankment I fell into a conveniently placed hole about 3 feet, smashed my face into the box and overextended my knee... I'm still grumpy about that one. It like a chunk of the hill was missing and replaced with a big 4X4 hole! Ow. I'm still aching in the knee area and I'm supposed to fill out an accident report.
After we got back, we got the rescue truck back in service just in time to get paged out for a chimney fire. We arrived on scene, Mark and I grabbed the ladder, and got ready to go up. As I grabbed the halyard (the rope on the ladder) to raise it, it snapped in my hands! That was irritating, but we still had to get up there, so I used my "mad muscles" and pushed the ladder up by hand. Then I ended up heeling the ladder for an hour while the guys got to play on the roof. Oh well, I was really hungry at this point and ready to just hang around.
Thankfully those calls ended by 10:00ish and we were able to get some food by 11:00. Yikes... It's 1:00am and I haven't even begun working on my EMT stuff! *sigh* I suppose I'll be up all night working on that... unless we get another call!
On a plus note, I got an email from one of the chiefs today asking if I'd be willing to "test" some new station wear... New pants! New shirts! New JACKET! I'm excited. Unlike my helmet which is stained black and proud of it, new clothes are always welcome!
If you're looking for a new song to listen to, I've recently discovered "Mad World" by Tears for Fears... I was watching a really disgusting preview for "The Crazies" and the only thing that caught my interest was the music! Google it and listen if you're bored.
-Jess

Brrrrrr!!

2009-11-02T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well let me start out by saying that we have had enormously odd weather here in Wasilla this month. It's November and it hasn't snowed yet! However, the wind storms have been picking up and so the temperature is FREEZING and lots of houses are catching on fire.
This weekend we had 4 structure fires and a whole slew of wildland fires. The entire time we were all completely miserable because our turnouts really don't keep out the wind. It was quite nippy out.
One fire that was particularly interesting was a cement production facility catching on fire. Because of the wind it just kept the fire going, but we got a really good stop on it and saved 75% of the building. It was neat, I then got to be a scene photographer and stayed to help with the investigation and find out the cause/origin of the fire. That was a really neat process to see and now I'm considering taking a few classes on fire investigation just for the heck of it.
Anyway, no really neat news, classes are going well enough and I'm coming up on my EMT final... 5 weeks and I'll be in Florida... YAY!
-Jess

Clean your helmet or the chief will clean it for you.

2009-10-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

So. Tuesday. There I was, fire all around me.
Got to go interior and then lead a few crews in, so that was new and unusual. We had a decent little trailer fire that had fuel tanks all around it and fire blowing out the windows. There weren't a lot of our guys there, so the chief ended up putting me in charge of the Charlie Side. Now, I've lead a crew in and done my fair share of instruction, but never have I actually been told, "Jess, you're in charge." It was a new experience... and besides some minor radio miscommunications and running out of water while I was in there, it went really well!
I was officer on the first in engine and we made entry pretty quick. With the Medic 1 in front and me behind, we got a knock on the fire until they ran out of water on the outside waiting for the tankers to come. When we went back in one of the guys jacked the nozzle from me, which pissed me off, and I got stuck humping hose at the doorway. Whatever, later he got stuck sitting on a tarp while I got to rip apart the building with a chain saw. So anyway, my helmet got blackened and man, that stuff does not want to come off! My formerly spotty-yellow lid is now a dark grey color. The chief threatened to give me a new helmet if I don't find a way to clean it up, but man I've tried everything from smoke out to WD-40!
As of this weekend I have finally (FINALLY!!!) finished the rescue tech class. I'm now allowed to respond to the rescue truck for accidents, medical calls, and whatever else they throw at me. For the last 2 years I've been training myself to tune out rescue calls, now I have to remake my state of mind.
In other news, today was my Anatomy and Physiology Midterm which was a miserable experience all around. I totally and completely bombed it, you have no idea. The thing that really irritated me was the fact that I studying all week until 3 in the morning and lost a ton of sleep over it and I STILL failed it! *grumble* Alas, passing was not to be.
It was a rotten day today, I had a shift last night that was bombarded by CO calls and fire alarms. It interrupted my studying something fierce, but that's to be expected. It couldn't be a structure fire or a big accident, something worth my time, no it had to be false alarms.
Upcoming schedule looks booked, I've got my EMT midterm Saturday, a 5 page paper due in English, a shift Thursday/Friday, Training tomorrow, a fire education thing, A&P, and Jujitsu on Wednesday, and a Hockey game on Saturday. Only two more months until I disappear in the Bahamas on a well deserved vacation. . . Florida, here I come.
-Jess

Remote Control Cars and Trash Can Fires.... This is the life.

2009-10-02T02:48:00.000-07:00

We've had some funny calls lately... My duty shift the other night made sure that I was tired!
The evening started out well enough, we got our chores done, hung around the station a bit, and then it came in... A trash can fire at the local lake. We laughed to ourselves about stupid kids, jumped in the truck and ran down there with an APW. (Air Pressured Water extinguisher for you newbs.) "So there I was, fire all around me..." We saved the "structure", aka pavilion, and went on our way. Upon arrival back at the station, I barely had enough time to refill the APW when the page went out, "...to respond to the park for a trash can on fire..." You have got to be kidding me. So we went back. Not so funny this time! We put out the fire in a different trash can. Har dee har. (As a side note, the trash can fires continued for the next few days, but stopped for this evening...)
It was fairly obvious it was going to be one of those nights.
On our way back we got a page for the rescue truck to respond to a person who was run over... by a remote control car. We though dispatch was playing a joke on us. Rescue for an MVA involving a remote control car?? Get out the jaws! Crib it! Grab the struts! Come to find out, we were actually quite useful as the patient was in need of transport. But still...
So we headed back to the station. I was exhausted, went to bed. And the curse struck. Asleep for 5 minutes and the tones went out to go to an "out of control" bon-fire. Come to find out it was perfectly under control and a camp fire.

Anyway, thought I would share those little adventurous tid-bits with you! Luckily the night ended there and I was able to get a little bit of sleep!
As many know, today marks the beginning of Fire Safety Month! I hope everyone is doing their part and checking their smoke alarms as the season for structure fire is upon us.

Personally, not a lot is up. I'm in the rescue class, so when I finish the Rescue Tech I course, I will automatically be an RT II because I've already got all the other certs I need for that. So that's neat! College classes are going reasonably well, I didn't fail my A&P test like I thought I would, so that's great news! Only a few more months and Florida, here we come!
-Jess

It's been a busy week!

2009-09-26T01:38:00.001-07:00

Well we're coming to the close of the Alaska State Firefighter's Conference for 2009 and I've had a busy week. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the pre-conference but I did get to take some interesting classes on Firefighter health and fitness as well as a flashover and extreme fire behavior course. Today I was supposed to take a forcible entry class, but it was cut short by last night's events (more on this later.)
Anyway, yes it has been an eventful week for this firefighter with training up the ying-yang! Tomorrow completes the conference for me with a flashover demonstration which will happen about 7:30am before the firefighter competitions. Should be fun!
Yesterday was a busy duty night for us, we were caught in an unseasonal wind storm that caused 2 transformers to blow and catch things on fire as well as the world to erupt with mindless fire alarms. I walked in the door of the station at 6:00pm and didn't walk back in until 1:00am... Needless to say, I was a little too pooped to make the hour drive to Anchorage at 6:00 this morning after an evening of calls. Nevertheless, tomorrow!
No more structure fires since the last post, but the season has begun. The temperature is dropping, it's time for me to get out my winter coat, snow tires, and ice scraper. Here comes fun!
-Jess

Pictures from Tuesday's Fire

2009-09-17T14:58:00.001-07:00

All photos by John Borland www.morffed.com

When our interior crew meets ops at the "door"

Pulling ceiling

Lt. and I on the roof pulling shingles

'Tis the season...

2009-09-16T03:59:00.000-07:00

Dude.
I just led an interior attack for the first time. I'm still drooling a little bit.
There we were, in the grocery store picking up our dinner for the evening when the page went out. We booked it, first due engine, my officer (Danny) threw me a radio and told me to grab a preconnect while he grabbed another line. I went and stood by at the door with my partner and waited for my officer. He didn't come. Command yells at me to "make entry already!" So I did.
From what I hear, this is how the exterior conversation went:
Chief: Hey are you having commo problems? I keep hearing Jess answer for interior.
Danny: That's because Jess is interior.
Chief: You're not with her?
Danny: No... I sent her in with Tim.
Chief: ....*dumbfounded look*.... In the future, you should go in with your crew.
They let me stay! It. Was. So. Cool.
Ok, granted... The fire wasn't very big and it was pretty much all on the exterior. . . But we didn't know that until I told them!
YES!

In other news, that's the second structure fire within a week... Structure fire season has begun! The unfortunate side of the first structure fire is that it happened to be someone who goes to my parent's church and I know fairly well. On the one hand, the house was nearly destroyed, we salvaged one bedroom and the garage, but on the other hand our response time was extremely fast, if it had been any longer the whole house would have been a loss. They did lose a cat, but the family was safe. They were home at the time. That's the curse of fighting fire in the city you grew up in, while our borough is approximately the size of West Virginia, it's still got a small town feel to it. It definitely won't be the last time I fight fire in someone I know's home.

F.D. Biz aside, life is good! School is going well, my EMT class is awesome! My Anatomy and Physiology class on the other hand really sucks. I have a hard time learning things that I can't see and touch. So when we start talking about things on a molecular level I have the desire to stand up and shout "I want to put sick people in an ambulance and take them to the hospital... I don't need to know about the twists and turns of the double helix!!" But whatever. One good thing about A&P is the cool videos my lecture professor shows us! Please geek out with me on this video, it's the inner-workings of a cell animated and set to really neat music!
http://aimediaserver4.com/studiodaily/videoplayer/?src=ai4/harvard/harvard.swf&width=640&height=520

Well... That's about it. I'm sure if I searched my soul I'd be able to find something more interesting, but why bother.
-Jess

Poof! Fall.

2009-09-08T00:35:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year... The one that always makes me feel like a little kid going back to school. I always want to go buy a new spiderman backpack, a ninja turtles lunch box, and a set of new crayons about now. Fall is in the air and you can smell the cranberries ripening. The mountains are starting to look like they are on fire because of the red bushes and golden trees... It's beautiful. Fall has always been my favorite time of year.
In other news, I was on shift the other night with a bright, full moon in the sky... And man, did it bring out the crazies! We were up all night on medical assists dealing with broken legs, broken skulls, and everything else you can think of. It was a blast and made me realize how excited I am to become a paramedic! Granted, nothing is as cool as running into burning buildings, but medical stuff is a close second. Maybe I just like flashing red lights and sirens.
Yesterday was my niece, Marina's, first birthday. Therefore I drove to Eagle River, about 30 minutes away, and threw money at my sister because I didn't have time to buy a present. She is the cutest thing you can imagine! She's just learning to walk and it's really funny to watch her hobble back and forth between her parents. Kids like that make me think that having children might not ruin my life.
In other news, today David and I spent the day with my nephew, Zach, at the fair. We were total dorks and had a blast! We went on the Gravitron, which I never, ever need to do again... I don't know why we paid so much to get dizzy and feel sick to our stomachs, but we did! On a fun note, we got old time-y pictures taken with the whole Woelfel Gang... All of the girls dressed up as hookers, and the guys all had guns... It was an enjoyable time. Pictures to follow eventually if I feel like humiliating myself. Anyway, it was fun. We loaded Zach up on cotton candy and ice cream then sent him home to his mother where he promptly decided to bounce off the walls.
Because of Labor Day weekend, David and I both got today and tomorrow off of class. It's a welcome break. I'm starting to get back into the swing of school life. I'm learning to balance my schedule as much as I can and be self motivating enough to do my online classes. I'm all stressed out, though and can't WAIT until December when we get to go to Florida and relax.
Well, that's about all for now. Still no fires, but a bunch of false alarms. They keep teasing us! The season is coming, I can feel it in my bones! Until next time...
-Jess

"I'm busy"... the understatment of the year.

2009-09-03T23:20:00.001-07:00

Well, I've done it. I started school. My tuition for this semester is paid for thanks to my two weeks on the crew.
I'm on shift tonight, I should be working on reading my EMT book, but instead I'm wasting time on facebook and blogger. Ah, well... it could be worse.
Anyway, I'm busy! I'm working full time for the department between shifts and hydrant testing, am going to school full time, have Jujitsu twice a week, and still need time to study and do my homework... I'm booked, and it's just going to be getting busier.
Monday, I have my Anatomy Classes, Tuesday I hydrant test during the day then have training, Wednesday I am hydrant testing during the day, have more Anatomy classes, and have Jujitsu, Thursday I work at night, Friday I have English class and jujitsu, Saturday I have EMT class then work in the evening, Sunday is hockey night. Meanwhile, I am trying to stay on top of my homework and online classes and am signing up for as much time on the clock at the department as possible.
September presents the Basic Fire class which I will be helping out with, then the state firefighter's conference at the end of the month. October will be the Rescue Technician class which I will FINALLY be taking and fire prevention month. We'll be doing station tours and school presentations all month... It makes for a busy life.
Honestly, I'm booked solid. Luckily my English class is only once a month and in a few weeks, my EMT class will go to every other Saturday... So I'll just have to have some self discipline and motivate myself to do my work.
Anatomy Class is royally kicking my butt, and it's only the second week. Right now we are discussing things that nobody can even take pictures of they are so small. This does me no good. I really don't care. BUT! I have to know it... because that's really important when you're a paramedic apparently...

In other news, we are doing RIC training currently and Tuesday night I got to die. We did the Nance Drill where I was sent through the floor with a rope tied around my feet to save a Rescue Randy. While I was down there, I conveniently "fell through the floor" into the Denver Drill Prop and was "unconscious and unresponsive." I had a fun time being completely limp for my fellow firefighters while they had to attempt to get me out of this box. It was pretty fun and I learned a lot. I got to go up in the platform truck and get all harnessed up. It was really cool! I would like to take a more in depth RIC course. There's one being offered at the conference, but I don't have enough time to take it... It's 3 days.
Anyway, after training the chief called me skinny and it pretty much made my day. :-)
Well, that's the news... Still no recent fires, but a few close calls. Here comes structure fire season!
-Jess

Responsibility is a 14 letter word...

2009-08-25T13:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my first day of college... and I hate it.
Ok, maybe hate is too strong of a word. The classes themselves are fine, but I feel like I'm back in high school and that really sucks.
However, I will say that the supreme lack of anything else to do is great! I'm putting off getting a second job until I really need it and the whole 30 hour a week work schedule is sitting just fine with me. I am quite ill, though, and that really sucks. My nose is snotty, my eyes are gooping up, and I have a really nasty cough. Not to mention I can't hear or taste anything. If it keeps up, I might break down and go to the doctor for the first time in 4 years.
So yes, yesterday I went to my Anatomy and Physiology lab and lecture. Both of which were mildly informative and made me question why I was paying $2,000 out of pocket for my education. That's ok though, because in the end, I will be making a lot more money with a Paramedic Degree.

I've promised tales of my forestry crew adventure, so here it is in chronological order:
Monday 8/3:
We left Wasilla on a private plane and landed in Fairbanks. We were supposed to go straight to the Clear helibase, unfortunately it was extremely smokey and the planes couldn't fly any further. So, we landed, took a bus to get some lunch, and then headed to Clear. It should be mentioned that that morning I woke up so sick I couldn't eat, drink, or even brush my teeth without throwing up. I was NERVOUS! ... and hungry!
Upon arrival at Clear, the helicopters couldn't fly, so we were stuck there. We camped for the evening.
Tuesday 8/4:
Another day of staging waiting for some of the smoke to clear... It was nice, warm, sunny, and I was still sick.
Wednesday 8/5:
I was able to force down some crackers after another day of staging. That evening we got a brief break in the smoke and were able to shuttle the crew out to fire #250 via helicopter. We got there, I lost my knife climbing out of the helicopter, and we set up camp.
Thursday 8/6:
My first day on the line, it was beautiful outside, and we spent the day looking for heat. We found some nice ash pits and dug them up, it was a fairly easy day. I was able to eat a meal finally!
Friday 8/7:
A hard day's work! We began the day with a mile hike to the river. Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but we had to hike up a sheer cliff face with our packs and extra supplies. They sent us supplies via boat 60 miles up the river because we were socked in... Later that day, after we had carried ALL our supplies back to camp, the smoke cleared and they did air cargo drops.
We got fresh food boxes filled with steak, potatoes, beans, candy, butter, bread, tortillas, cheese, and anything else you could think of... It was awesome! They also droppped hundreds of MRE and Cubee packages which are HEAVY! We also swamped the whole 2 acre fire, which took a lot of hard work. We cut down all the trees that were in our way and then stacked them so we could grid the fire without killing ourselves.
Saturday 8/8:
Gridded the fire... That's it.
Sunday 8/9:
Gridded the fire and packed up camp. That afternoon we were flown off the fire and staged back at the Clear Helibase. We camped there for the evening.
Monday 8/10:
We were flown to the Railbelt Complex (The REALLY BIG FIRE) Division Romeo. The fire was 650,000 acres... That's huge. Luckily we were on a section that was about 6 square miles, so we didn't have to hike all that much. The first day we headed South, hunted hot spots and dug them up.
Tuesday 8/11:
Contiued South. We hiked 3 miles out hunting hot spots, and then had to hike 3 miles back... That was a little taste of misery.
Wednesday 8/12:
Grouse season began, we started hunting what we could armed with slingshots and pulaskis... Oh and we headed north, hunting for hot spots.
Thursday 8/13:
Continued North hunting hot spots.
Friday 8/14:
Went south gridding.
Saturday 8/15:
Completed South grid, and went North gridding.
Sunday 8/16:
It rained all day. We stayed warm and dry in camp.
Monday 8/17:
I hit 21 days without a day off and went home. David drove to Clear to come get me, that was nice of him.

Well, that was the trip... logistically speaking. There was a lot of fun times and some not so fun times, but overall it was a good experience.
-Jess

Finally an update!

2009-08-23T22:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've updated for a number of reasons... The main one being that I was 100 miles away from an internet connection and civilization for two weeks on a fire assignment with the Gannett Glacier Fire Crew.
We went out at the beginning of the month and I just got back on Monday, I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the last week because I start classes tomorrow and didn't have my books or my tuition.
So yes, how did the fire assignment go? Well, the way I like to put it is: We were on the biggest fire in the nation and didn't see any flames. It rained almost the entire time we were out, and we hiked around looking for hot spots and gridding the whole time. I'm not complaining, because I made a whole bunch of money, but honestly, I could have gone for a slightly better turn out on the whole fighting fire front.
Otherwise it's been, dare I say it. quiet. No fires, no car wrecks, not even many CO alarms. The Valley has decided to not have a lot of emergencies this month. It's the calm before the storm...
Structure fire season is coming, I can feel it in the air. Fall is about to hit, and for some reason it starts to get cold and houses burst in to flames.
On a personal level, my life is about to go from jam packed to just plain chaotic. I'm currently stressed over paying for college and I've been sick as a dog this week with a nasty cold. I am actually having to commit myself to something as big as a career and that's really quite a step for me. Last night I suggested that David and I sit down and write out a ten year plan... David's Mom overheard this and started laughing really hard at the idea of me and a ten year plan. She says she'd like to see me, "Ms. Spontaneity", hold a five minute plan and then we can work on a ten year plan.
Well, I'll post soon about my trip with forestry, for now, over and out...
-Jess

I still exist!

2009-07-23T20:10:00.000-07:00

No more blogging at work... It has been banned, so naturally my number of posts has greatly decreased.
However, in the past few weeks the heat wave has come and gone. It was up into the 90* range there for a few days. Over a million acres of land are burning throughout the state... and nobody cares! How's that for an example of how flippin' big Alaska is?
It's amazing that there is over a million acres burning and none of it is threatening civilization. Pretty crazy? I think yes.
It's been a few weeks since I did anything with the department because I've been insanely busy, working 12 hours a day over at Forestry. It's been slow for emergency services the last few weeks, anyway... Except for the car accidents, nothing has really been happening. No structure fires since the 13th of June, which is great for homeowners. Winter is coming soon and thus our busy season will begin again.
A few friends and I are planning a quick road trip down to Squamish, Canada to go climbing until school starts back up again. We'll hit Vancouver, Seattle, and Yakima and climb to our heart's content. Should be fun.
Well, when something exciting happens, I'll post. Until then...
-Jess

Heat = Fire = Money

2009-07-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a long couple of weeks... It's been 80+ degrees everyday with winds coming in and blowing things around. I haven't worked under 10 hours in 2 weeks, and I am getting really tired.
July is flying by, I can't believe it's already the 13th! This weather is expected to keep up for the next couple of weeks, which is great because that means lots of Overtime for me!
At the same time, any thought of social life or doing anything outside is falls by the wayside.
Saturday I went to the wedding of some friend's... It short and sweet, and they both looked great! It was a really cool wedding, it made me excited to start planning my own.
David and I have started planning our wedding a little more recently... We've decided to go with a Guns and Hoses theme as he is training to be a police officer and I am a firefighter. And yes Christine, we're going to go with Fire Engine Red, Navy Blue, White, and Black as our colors. It will be an oddly patriotic wedding, I feel.
We're thinking the guys can all be in red and black tuxes, while David will be in blue and black. Then the bridesmaid's will be in blue dresses with red sashes and red, white, and blue bouquets. It'll be neat me thinks.
Tonight I've been extended until 8:00, but I think I might get out of here a little bit earlier. . . At least I can hope. Today is my official day off, but we're really busy so obviously it didn't happen. I'll be lucky to get a day off next week.
This morning I woke up at 6:30 and showed up at work an hour and half early to go out on a pack out... 2 miles, 50 pounds, glacier water. One of the techs and I went hiking, it was nice to get some exercise in and my shoulders are a little bit sore. I definitely needed it. I'll sleep well tonight, that's for sure.
Well, I'm off...
-Jess

Grumpy Dispatcher

2009-07-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

What a couple of days it's been!
There's something in the air here... and it's smoke. The normally bright and in-your-face mountains that surround the office are invisible because the smoke blowing in is so thick. It's hot, 80 degrees everyday, and everything in Alaska is on fire... Except the Mat-Su. No, no, we're just getting neighbor feuds and angry people wanting to know why we haven't put out that huge fire yet. Everybody has been pissed off about something the last few days and they've all decided to take it out on the lowest person on the totem pole. Me.
One of my supervisors has been singling me out and making me feel like everything I'm doing is wrong and just getting really upset over super stupid stuff! I don't know, I'm just really ready to be done with this crap. I thought the fire season was coming to a close and now since there's over 200,000 acres burning here right now, it looks like it is not to be. I try and just think about the money I'm making but I keep coming back to looking forward to finishing out the year and going back to fighting fires all winter long.
Yesterday was a BAD day in every definition.
It started out with orders for engines from the local departments getting sent to Kenai for the big fire that's erupted down there. It was chaos from the very beginning. My supervisor yelled at me for checking my email and then proceeded to pick on me for the rest of the day. See, I don't have enough experience in the ROSS (The resource ordering and statusing system) so I wasn't given any orders to fill. So I sat here doing menial tasks and surfing the net... I walked out of the room and he jumped on the computer to snoop. It was really childish and it upset me that he didn't trust me to help him. It just kind of set the ball rolling towards a bad day. I proceeded to get yelled out over money, my attention span, answering the phone, talking on the radio, and doing my job throughout the day. It. Was. Ridiculous.
Then towards the end of the day, the Tanker called us telling us it was going to be doing an emergency landing because it had blown one of it's two engines. Before we knew what was going on, an aircraft rescue truck, an engine, a tender, a cop car, and an ambulance were on the runway waiting for the plane to land. I'm sure they were all confused when the plane landed safely and taxi'd in without incident.
After the safe return of the Tanker and 3 minutes before it was time to go home, we got a phone call reporting a fire with very confusing directions out by the glacier. What a goat rope! Ugh, I don't even feel like justifying it, but today the complaintant called us back and said that he had given us directions that were off by 10 miles. Needless to say, if it were possible to commit serious bodily harm via telephone, it would have been done.
Well, it's been calm so far today... but that never means anything. Here's to another long night.
-Jess

Positive Entrapment

2009-07-08T13:07:00.001-07:00

Car fire this morning... Positive entrapment with spread to the wildland.
Nothing too bad, the ambulance got their first and got the person out, transported before we even got there. I was in charge of wildland suppression while everyone else worked on the car. It wasn't bad, a little spot fire or two and finding the cause. I knew when I responded that if there was any way they could get me away from that car fire, they were going to do it. That's the curse of being the young firefighter, everybody's trying to protect your innocence. Oh well, fire is fire, and I kicked that spot fire's butt!
Nothing gets you out of bed faster than hearing that someone's trapped in a car that's on fire. I was fast asleep when the tones went out, I heard the ambulance and the station and assumed it was nothing. I think we all assumed it was nothing. Hearing positive entrapment is like getting struck with lightning.
In any case, I think the patient is ok thanks to our awesome EMS crew for their no-nonsense transportation.
-Jess

Fourth of July Weekend

2009-07-05T20:37:00.001-07:00

Man... what a weekend.
Yesterday was a fun day of barbeques, parades, and waterball. As per usual, yesterday was the Fourth of July CMSFD parade and family barbeque where we had a few fun filled hours of handing out candy to children and whooping butt in Waterball.
Our team which consisted of Richard, Mark, and I were the undisputed and undefeated champions. It was awesome.
My nieces, nephews, sisters, fiance, family-in-law, and Bridget's family all came to the parade, so that was neat.
The weather has been HOT! 80*+ degrees and it's humid... Thanks to the humidity there hasn't been a single fire in the Mat-Su area. So it's high fire danger, which means I'm here until 10:00 at night, but it's too wet for something to actually happen. And thus I get heavier and heavier by the moment.
I hate to say it, but I'm almost looking forward to lay-offs coming soon... Then I will to go fight fires again and get back into shape! Yipes.
Well, that's about all for now, I guess I will be off.
Here's a picture of my niece and I at the parade. Please note the ridiculous amount of tar on my visor from that fire a few weeks ago.
-Jess

Musings of an Alaskan Firefighter

2009-07-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

It's surprising to me that the slowest time for fires in Alaska is the summer.
Earlier in the season, usually between April and June, everything is dead and dry and we get wildland fires like crazy. However, it's a really slow period for structure fires and our department is pretty much dead from early July to mid September.
I always thought that summer was the time for fires and winter was the time for car wrecks. Come to find out it's actually the opposite. We get a decent amount of wrecks during the winter, but the really nasty ones happen on beautiful summer days where people decide they want to hot rod their car/truck/suv down one of our famously twisty roads.
Winter time is crazy. Sometimes just our department will have 2-3 structure fires a day for a week at a time. That usually happens around mid-December to early January, when the temperature drops to -40F and people's "custom" homes lose electricity and heat. That's when we reach the point where our 5" supply lines freeze solid. We had to learn the hard way never to shut a nozzle all the way during the winter time or when we really need it, all we'll have for water is ice.
It's always interesting reading other firefighter's blogs from down in the states, where they'll talk about it getting to -15F or even -20F... When I read that my mind automatically jumps to the day it was -35F, we had 3 structure fires, and I frost bit my hands.
It started out, I was on duty crew... We were just settling in to watch the Dark Knight around midnight when we got a 9 station call out for Wasilla Bible Church, home to Gov. Sarah Palin. We spent 8 hours on that fire, most of the time being sprayed with a sprinkler we were unable to turn off... Our 5" supply line, our gear, and everything else we could think of froze solid. It was just too cold! We got back, slept for 3 hours, and then got called out to another structure fire, the details to remain indisclosed, and got back home in time for dinner that night. 8:00 pm, third structure fire, fully involved. The temperature had dropped by then to a blustery -40F... I got covered from head to toe in foam-- my gear, helmet, and tool were all completely white, and my left eye was frozen shut. My gloves were solid blocks of ice that would not bend no matter what I did... It was then that I decided that I really love being a firefighter.
I look forward to the winter again this year... Fires to fight, homes to save, and hey maybe a frost bitten toe to lose! Until then, I'll enjoy the fire-less 70 degree summer we're having.
-Jess

Documentary!

2009-06-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I met with Brian about the movie. It's going to take a lot of work to complete this thing, but I think I finally have an idea of exactly where I want to take it and what I want to tell people about the fire service.
I was told that writing a documentary is just like writing an essay, you present a thesis, give the facts proving your thesis, and prove your point. So, I decided to do just that. I wrote an essay if for no other reason than to get my thoughts out on paper for myself.
I know a decent amount of firefighters peruse this blog, so tell me if you think I've got a handle on the thing. (see "Fire In Ice Thesis" at the bottom)
I'm thinking for the opening shot, having people going into an initial attack with action shots of them fighting fire and being awesome and as the camera draws closer to their face, break away clips of them in a suit and tie at work or at home with their families or going to college... I see it being pretty cool. I don't want any narration, just them talking. I think the interviews should reveal the point without me having to shove it into the face of the audience. Yes? No? Thoughts?
-Jess

Fire In Ice Thesis:
Firefighters are known to the public eye as local heroes putting their lives on the line for strangers and making sacrifices that many feel they couldn't make. However, while most people believe they owe thanks, many can not comprehend how big a sacrifice dedicated on call personnel make. Firefighters give up holidays, birthdays, graduation, and more for the satisfaction of doing something to help another person. They experience trauma and see people on the worst days of their lives just so they can know that in the end, they made a difference. The fire department attracts people for all different reasons and from various backgrounds, but they are all there to do the job that no one else can do.

You know you have been a dispatcher too long when...

2009-06-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

You answer your home phone "9-1-1, what is your emergency?"
You spend more on fast food than utilities.
You see nothing wrong with eating a Taco Bell Grande Meal or pizza at 3 a.m.
Adult emergency personnel, not related to you; refer to you as mother/father.
You consider coffee an indispensable work tool.
You answer your home phone "dispatch".
You answer dispatch phone "hell" instead of "hello".
The only thing that gets your adrenaline going is the walk to and from your car.
You find humor in other people's misery.
You're only happy if you have something to complain about.
You consider patience a weakness, not a virtue.
Your idea of a good night involves someone getting shot, chased or dismembered.
You have forgotten what it is like to actually eat a warm meal.
Your dog doesn't recognize you and the kids think you're just the person who drops by every now and then to bring groceries and do the laundry.
You truly believe stupidity should be painful.
Dinner consist of a 2 liter bottle of soda and whatever you can scrounge out of the vending machine.
Antacid tablets, or better known as dispatcher candy, become your regular desert.
You read newspaper accounts of a major incident that occurred during your shift and can point out all the incorrect information...and then laugh about it.
Family members comment about how nice you "used" to be before you started this job.
You believe in aerial spraying of Prozac and/or birth control over certain parts of your city.
You have no idea what a holiday is, other than it's the day when everyone gets drunk and beats up their family members.
You can carry on more than 4 conversations simultaneously.
You have the bladder capacity of a tanker.
You can resume a conversation with coworkers 4 hours later, in mid-sentence and everyone knows what you are talking about.
You have a long term telephonic relationship with one or more paranoid schizophrenic PTSD suffering relatives of a public official.
You get impatient listening to people relate a story - You want "just the facts".
You believe 90% of people can't look up a telephone number.
You get easily bored with happy, content people.
You have perfected the phrase "I pay taxes, too".
You can talk on the phone; listen to the radio and type request into the computer at the same time without missing anything.
You can give directions to any location in your city off the top of your head.
You can relate a 10 minute story over a 2 hour time period, after many interruptions, without losing your place.
You refuse to allow anyone to say "Have a quiet shift".
You believe that the statement, "It sure is quiet!" will bring down the wrath of god upon you.
You know the phone number of every restaurant or business that delivers food, especially late at night.
You spell everything phonetically.
You can only tell time on a 24 hour clock.
You acknowledge your friends and families remarks with the time.
You have spent time explaining to officers, firefighters or EMT's the difference between a dispatcher and a personal assistant.
You live in fear of a full moon.
You find no comfort in knowing that the equipment that you depend on to do your job and protect others was purchased at the lowest bid possible.
You respond faster to the name "BASE" than you do to your own name.
You find yourself talking to family and friends in codes.
You have a tendency to giggle at your friends "big" problems.
You respond “AFFIRMATIVE” when told to please pull around to the first window at a fast food restaurant.

Bored at work... can't you tell?

2009-06-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

It'll be interesting to watch my blog post numbers plummet after I'm done working Forestry... As it stands, the only thing I really do at work is blog, read the news, and do fire reports.
So yes, news:
David and I have established the Mac Book as our own and so I have been reviewing my footage for my documentary so far. Some of the things people have told me are awesome. It's hard to relay over the internet what is so cool about what they said, but I'll let it stand at this: The finished product is going to be really cool to watch and hopefully it'll give a little bit of insight into the world that is being an on call firefighter. Today I have a meeting set up with Brian (it's so weird calling my old teacher that) to work on a production schedule. I'm psyched... While I was hoping to finish preliminary filming by July 4th, it's not looking like it's going to cut it. I will be working on interviews through September at least if not all they way through to December. At the very least, I want to enter it in the film festival for 2010. What I need to work on more than anything is getting an emotional response from my interviewees. I think both myself and the people I was interviewing were really rather nervous, I need more practice. I'm also going to start bringing my video camera with me to work so I can get some recordings of radio traffic... I think it would be cool to get lights and sirens with radio traffic for the beginning.
In any case. I saw Transformers 2 last night, it was pretty lame. I don't feel like giving a whole review on it, but I will give it this: It was better than Terminator 4 and slightly entertaining. I recommend it for kids and adults with kids.
I've pretty much given up on saving all my money... I guess what I'll be trying to do is set aside a certain amount to have a cushion in case things go drastically horrible in the next few months. Because of low fire danger I haven't been getting as many hours, so I'll be attempting to put away $5,000 for emergency purposes only. I'm hoping to get a bunch of hours with central starting in September. Of course, I might get to go on an assignment to the 48 for a few weeks, so that would pad my paycheck quite nicely. Meh, we can hope.
I took another Jujutsu class on Tuesday, that was really fun. Bridget my soon to be sister in law is really into martial arts so she's going to start taking it with me. I got to learn some force moves involving the elements, so that was cool.
And I blog no more!
-Jess

So... You decided to take a nap?

2009-06-25T10:55:00.001-07:00

Alaska. The Final Frontier. Home to the biggest state in the U.S., the highest mountain in North America, and possibly the worst drunks in the world. Bragging rights, I know. We have a different kind of demographic here... Everyone seems to be made of something just a little bit, well, weird. We're quirky, odd, a little bit on the manic depressant side, but mostly we're just Alaskans.
But I digress.
On duty crew the other night, I failed to realize how amusing one of our calls was.
Initial Report:
1 ambulance and rescue to respond to a man down on the side of the road with an ATV (four-wheeler to us Alaskans) near by. Caller did not stop, man did not look responsive. Alaska State Troopers enroute.
My thoughts:
No big deal, probably got a good knock to the head, but most likely not horribly maimed.
Halfway there:
AST on location, ETOH involvement, hostility at scene, reduce to code yellow.
Upon Arrival:
Man lying on the side of the road with medics checking him out. The report? Well, he said he was too drunk to drive his ATV, so he decided to pull over and sleep it off... in the ditch. He said he wasn't hurt, because he didn't crash. He was just being a responsible citizen and didn't want to drive a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Unfortunatly, he had already been doing that, so AST had to take him into custody. He seemed all to pleased to be going with them, we'll see how he feels waking up in a jail cell.
The moral of the story:
Whether you rode an ATV, your bicycle, drove your car, heck even if you came on a pogo stick... If you're drinking, hand over the keys. It's not worth winding up in jail and losing your license over something as stupid as driving your 4-wheeler drunk.
-Jess

My Monday is Your Wednesday

2009-06-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

I love Jujutsu. It's really enjoyable, even though I'm not very good at it yet.
So anyway, my weekend was pretty free and easy. I had an quick duty crew night, we had 3 lame calls including a medic assist, a DUI, and a general fire alarm, but hey at least we got something. I'm taking July and August off from Night crews, because I just don't have any time! I want to be able to go to training night on Tuesday, but I can't devote Monday and Tuesday night to fire -- they are my only two days off!
Anyway, Monday was pretty chill, I hardly left the house at all. David and I hung out most of the day until 6:00, when I went to work at the station. Tuesday I went to Anchorage and went to REI with Sanaa. I picked up some slack lining equipment so that I can learn to walk a line... That will be neat. After I got home, David and I chilled for a few hours and then proceeded to invite his family over for dinner. Now our kitchen is a mess and the living room is a disaster. However, David's Mom traded us her Mac Book for our desktop. This works out well because we've been trying to get our hands on a Mac for video editing for quite some time, and we figured if we had two lap tops we wouldn't need a desktop... It's all going according to plan, and we don't have to spend any money! Muahahaha!
So yes, now I have a computer to start working on my documentary. That is what makes this entire situation fantastic. All I need now is Final Cut, which is like 1,000 bucks, but whatever.
The college thing is actually going to happen this semester... As opposed to the last two semesters. . . I am procrastinating on filling out the paperwork for EMT I as I blog. I need to find one more class to take that will fit in to my schedule. I'm thinking speech or some other G E R.
And all in all, nothing exciting has happened in the last few days. I will update again before something does, I assure.
-Jess

Pictures from Knik River Rescue

2009-06-21T10:44:00.003-07:00

Some photos by John Borland of the Knik River Rescue. (www.morffed.com) If you look up in the left, that white blob by the mountains is the Knik Glacier. That water is coming directly off that thing, and man, it is cooold!

Dinner... Or the lack there of.

2009-06-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

It seems like every time I settle down to eat dinner I get sent to go save lives and rescue people. It's all well and good, but man I've been missing a lot of meals!
Yesterday, it happened again. There I was, working my way towards a quiet evening at home with my friend Kelsey, who I haven't seen in forever. When out of nowhere my pager goes off. I think to myself, it's probably a smoke investigation or a CO detector, I don't need to go.
Wrong. Dive team. We had to go to the Knik River Glacier and transport a boat of tourists who had gotten their river runner stuck on a deceivingly shallow sandbar. With our air boat which is finally fixed for the first time in a year, it was no problem to get them all to shore without them getting wet. No, no, the problem came when we had to get the guy's boat off the sandbar. That's the one that took us an hour and a half of shoving, running, pushing, pulling, twisting, grinding, and every other adjective out there. My god, what a pain in the ass. About Midnight:30 we got the guy out of the river, and then headed back in. We finally got back to the station around 1:30 and then Alpha snapped the serpentine belt. What a cluster. Finally I got home about 2:30 am and still had to take a shower... Man I'm looking forward to Monday when I can sleep in!
Anyway, before the rescue I had an hour of more-aggressive-than-usual hockey where I proceeded to slam people into walls and fight over the puck for a few hours. It was enjoyable but wore me out! I think I was so aggressive because work has been really stressing me out the past few days. I'm looking forward to my weekend. Tomorrow is my friday and man I am soooo ready to not be here anymore.
The weather has been crappy which means no fires. McGrath is still erupting, but everywhere else in Alaska is boooring! I'm hoping to get sent on assignment here soon.
That's all for now.
-Jess

Ju Jitsu!

2009-06-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend was pretty calm.
It started out early on Sunday when I was sent home from work for puking. It was weird, I had a really sudden case of vertigo and next thing I knew I was throwing up. I went home and slept it off, I think we've all come to the conclusion that I'm anemic. I started taking iron this morning.
Anyway, we had a water rescue call Sunday evening, so I ended up going for a little sunset river ride in the Matanuska, downstream from the glacier. The initial report was a pair of boots floating in the river. We all rolled our eyes knowing we wouldn't find anything, but we went looking just the same. The Matanuska is so silty and gray, you can't see anything, and it's FAST. The weather was acting up a bit too, so we were out there getting cold and wet for a few hours. Naturally, we didn't find a body. I went for a little swim, which possibly was not my greatest idea in the world, but it did remind me how hard it is to navigate in swift water. Chief dropped us off on one side of the river and told us to bail and get to the other side... We made it, but man we were fighting the current the whole time. It was cold, wet, and really fun. I love rivers.
Anyway after that I got home about 1:30 and fell asleep. Monday David and I went in to Anchorage and checked out some stuff for his Police thing and hit REI. We got back to the Valley in time for me to go to my introductory interview to start taking Ju Jitsu, and then I went to work. My interview went well, he commented that I already had a well trained fighting stance and I will thank Bowzr for teaching me how to box and grilling the footwork into my head.
Monday night we didn't get didly squat for calls. Not even a medical assist. Why is it that I go down there, fully prepared to wake up and we get nothing, but when I want to sleep through the night, we get hammered?
Anway, slept late Tuesday and just kind of took it easy. David and I went to Ju Jitsu for the first time last night and I had a blast. He thought it was ok, but I'm really excited about it! I learned how to pin people and all sorts of stuff. I like contact sports, David, not so much.
Anyway, now I'm back at work and it's overcast and rainy. Come to find out, forestry forgot to send me a paycheck so I have an extra $2,000 bucks coming in my next check... Score! I might be getting sent to McGrath for a few weeks because we have no fires and they have a million.
For now though, I remain bored and home.
-Jess

Work, Work, Lunch, Work

2009-06-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Prestidigitation is the word of the day today, as in skill in or performance of tricks. I have been subscribing to dictionary.com's word of the day email and improving upon my vocabulary. There are a lot of words out there! I thought that was a cool word though.
So, yes. As of late I have been working at forestry pretty much non-stop. I did get Monday off though, so that was nice. We had a few fires this week, one of which was a 1 hour helicopter ride away from here, and a stone's throw away from Kenai. The mapping needs to be redone around here, because we had to send our helo, when the Kenai helo was 5 minutes away. The maps go back to when Mat-Su Forestry had the best equipment and Kenai's helo couldn't go over water... Obviously things have changed. In any case, it ended up being a reasonably small fire, but the helitack crew spent the night out there and were investigated by many a curious bear. They were happy to be home, to say the least.
In other news, I played hockey last night and I'm pretty sore from that. It's really hard not to enjoy slamming your officers up against walls repeatedly... There's something extremely gratifying about it.
I've been getting up and working out every day... It's nice to get that morning boost of energy but I usually feel really hungry the rest of the day.
Today, it's raining and I would really like to get off on time. I'm sure that somewhere in the state of Alaska, they will need our tactical resources and I will therefore have to stay late, but one can hope.
I've got a shift Monday night, so maybe something will happen and I can actually write about fighting fire or something like that.
-Jess

Adventure Pictures!

2009-06-09T22:33:00.001-07:00

Some pictures from a few adventures David and I have gone on the past few weeks.

This is Independence Mine in Hatcher's Pass... I live in the Matanuska Susitna (Mat-Su) Valley and Hatcher's is just a 15 minute drive from our house.

I found a rusty old piece of mining equipment.... and put it on my head. For some reason, I put a lot of things on my head.

Here I noticed that Ray and Sauna looked a little warm so I helped cool them down with a snowball chucked lovingly their way.

. . . Well, this one doesn't really need an explanation.

Like I said... I put things on my head. There's no real reason behind it.

This is a little out of order, but this is David and I in Resurrection Bay on Monday. This was after a 4 hour drive and we were a little unenthused about the Seward Sea Life Center.

I claim this land for Spain... With an old piece of pipe and Sauna looking slightly less than enthusiastic.

I found a sock and was very excited.

As you can see, David is also quite happy about the sock.

Me looking for a way to cross the river and not get completely soaked.

David and I in Seward again, this time at the Exit Glacier view point... As you can see, we make a fantastic Totem Pole! We didn't hike to the Glacier because we wanted to get back and not get stuck in late night construction on the Seward Hwy.

David and I triumph... over the view point.

Long story short... Cthulhu is a plushie made after a fictional monster who haunts the seas in a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. He has been known in the past to terrorize wayward boats at sea. Cthulhu the plushie lives in the camera bag and so we usually find it necessary to pose him along with various doodads. We had a boat, I sat in it, Cthulhu terrorized me.

David places Cthulhu lovingly on a sign so that he too can enjoy the view in Hatcher's.

Cthulhu rocks out on a piece of old mining equipment.

We found a cone, took the sticker, David wore it... He is a six cone set and very proud.

We found a cone... Like I said, stuff on the head.

That's all for now...
-Jess

Well, that was quick...

2009-06-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

My weekend has come and gone without any major significance... David, his sister Tracy, and I went to Seward yesterday. I put about 400 miles on my car, and we spent all day singing at the top of our lungs, enjoying the weather, and exploring Seward. I have some pictures I will post tonight. We hit the Sea Life Center first, which frankly, is not as great as I remember it. It was still fun, but the place has been beaten to crap by little kids and tourists. They still had the touch and feel tank though, so that was neat... I caressed many a funky sea creature yesterday. After the Sea Life Center, we headed to the Harbor St. Creamery which has a-mazing pineapple coconut ice cream that I hadn't had for years! It was even better than I remeber... So tasty! We mowed down and then headed to Exit Glacier real quick to take a scenic photo and start heading back. We got home around 10:00, ate some leftover chinese for dinner, and then hit the sack. All in all, it was a pretty fun day.
Unfortunatly, I did get called in to work today as the fire danger is steadily rising and McGrath is exploding. Anyone we can spare has been flown to McGrath to lend a hand which leaves old Mat-Su with a skeleton crew and high fire danger. Oh well, I just keep reminding myself how much money I'm making. :D
-Jess

A weekend already?

2009-06-07T18:34:00.001-07:00

This week has seemingly flown by with nothing too exciting, but the weather is starting to pick back up.
I have tomorrow off, or so I'm told. So, my plan is to go down to Seward and run around like a maniac with whoever wants to go. I don't foresee Kelsey and David wanting to go because they just moved back to Wasilla from there, so if nothing else, it might just be David and I.
Speaking of David... There's been some discontent in our household these past few days as David seems to be dead set on quitting his job. I told him when he has saved up enough money to cover his half of the bills for the next 8 months, he can quit without having another job lined up. Hey, that's what I'm doing. I've done the math and with some careful budgeting I have calculated the money I will need to cover rent, car payments, insurance, cell phone, electricity, and martial arts classes for the next 9 months. I'll be making enough money this summer to set aside 9 weeks of pay to cover all my bills until May. I looked at my pay from Central over the past few months and I figure I should be living just fine with the monthly checks from that as long as I use my savings to pay all my bills. I'll just screw off all winter and fight fire... That works out great for me! I think David is getting annoyed with all my talk of not having to work over the next year. I mean, technically I'll be working, but I love fighting fire, so I don't really see it as working, I see it as getting paid for my hobby. But we digress. David, it's too bad he didn't work forestry like I told him he should. Life's tough all over. End of discussion.
So, I just got done working out with Crowe, he's one of the big bad tough guys out here, and dude that guy is a beast! He put me through the ringer and my arms hurt like hell! We did skull crushers at 55lbs, I benched more than I thought I could, we did preacher curls at ridiculous weights, I even did a few pull ups. Man, I will be sore tomorrow!
Otherwise, I have no news and since I have ranted about my finances to a ridiculous extent, I think I will move on with my life and find some other way to kill 30 minutes left of work.
-Jess

First reactions

2009-06-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

First reactions upon reading these words. I liked this, thought it was neat.
1. Cigarettes: smoke
2. Sex: female
3. Relationships: complicated
4. Your Last Ex is: none
5. Power Rangers: awesome
6. Crack: cocaine
8. Food: hungry
9. The president: Obama
10. Cars: mine's awesome
11. Gas Prices: not as bad as they were
12. Halloween: road trip
14. Bon Jovi: you give love a bad name
15. Religion: don't get me started.
16. Myspace: facebook
17. worst fear: loss of control
18. Marriage: eventually
19. Paris Hilton: yuck
20. Brunettes: ok
21. Redheads: don't like it
22: Politics: boring
23: Pass the time: fight fire
24. One night stands: not for me
25: Cell phone: vibrate
27: Pixie Stix: don't snort them
28: Vanilla Ice cream: sounds good
30: High school: glad it's over
31. Pajamas: warm and comfy
32. Wood: split
33. Wet Socks: suck
34. Alcohol: poisoning
35. The word HATE: is a strong one
36. Your best friend: I don't know
37. Money: is nice to have
38. Heartache: what's that?
39. Love: Firefighting
40. Time: to get off work.

At long last : College.

2009-06-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

So. I'm doing the commitment thing. I hate commitment.
I am commited to 1 semester of classes. I start August 24th and it lasts until December 12th. I am going to be going crazy because, frankly, I hate school.
Happily, my EMT I class will be paid for by Central. So, that's cool. It cuts my costs for the first semester in half. All I have to pay for is Anatomy and Phsyiology I and introduction to communications. How bad could it be?
In any case, this is me slightly irritated at the entire process. I would really like to take a class that interests me otherwise, but then I would have to pay another grand and it's just not worth it to me.
In other news, I'm getting my last tests out of the way so that I can complete my diver training. Soon I will be able to dive for dead bodies!..yay?
Yesterday I got to go take a tour of the helicopter. It is SO cool! My boss says to bring my boots with me from now on and she will arrange for me to have a day flying around with them. That excites the ever loving crap out of me! The helo is sooo cool!
It's been raining lately. That means nothing to do at forestry and not much overtime. It's nice to not be here 24/7, but it also really sucks because I need all that overtime to survive through the winter. Also, David wants to quit his job, which is all well and good except how are we going to survive? He applied for a job with forestry, but even still... David, that's seasonal. One of us needs to be bringing in some money during the winter time and frankly my job with Central is probably not going to cut it. Maybe APD will lift their hiring freeze in September and David can go to work for them.
So, in closing... I'm going to be doing the mature, responsible, adult thing this semester. The thing I decided to cross off my list for this year at least is going on another road trip. I am going to start taking Jiu Jitsu classes in September along with my college, David, Mike, Bridget and I have cruise reservations for December, I'll be getting my EMT I and Rescue Tech II by the end of the semester and hopefully I won't fail miserably at A&P. So here goes... Full time student and part time firefighter.
Well, I'm off.
-Jess

Adventure or Practicality, that is the question.

2009-06-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

Making a list of things that I want to do in the next year is annoying. See, I want to go on a cruise, learn a martial art, get into MMA, go on a road trip, take the EMT I class, get my rescue tech cert, take Firefighter 1, get on a hot shot crew, go work helitack, fight fire, make money, work on getting my degree, and generally screw around. It's really impossible to fit all of those things into the year. So the question is, which one do I put off?
I came home yesterday having a freak out moment where I told David I wanted to leave Alaska for a year and run around the world like a crazy person. He said we could save up and maybe go for like 3 months, but that would require us to not go to college next semester and for him to quit his job. Seeing that I've already put off getting my rescue tech, FFI, and EMT I a year, I should probably get off my sorry butt and do those. Plus starting next year I have to have EMT I in order to qualify as a FF I. *Sigh* life is a pain somtimes.
So here I sit, torn between everything wondering how I'll make ends meet.
I already submitted my application to UAA, I should really stop giving them money then deciding I don't want to go to college yet.
So, what now? I miss climbing in Utah and eating ice cream after being in the desert all day, but I also know that I want to be a paramedic and need to work towards that goal. If I don't start now, I'll never get it done.
Oh... what to do?
-Jess

Weekend Recovery

2009-06-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

I had a nice two day weekend that I am recovering from right now... I did everything I could possibly squeeze in. I fought fire, went to training, played whiffle ball, played football, went hiking in Hatcher's Pass, babysat my nieces, saw my nephews, hung out with both of my sisters, met David's step brother's long lost girlfriend from England, and generally just had a good time... I'm sore. I didn't stop moving for two days.
I think it's funny, I almost need these long hours to recover from my weekends! I think I worked every muscle in my body. My knee hurts from falling through the floor the other day, I think I hyper extended it. My core muscles hurt from football the other day. My butt muscles are really sore from hiking yesterday. I'm falling apart! . . . and I'm exhausted!
On the note of David's step brother's long lost girlfriend from England... She's really neat. Not only does she have a british accent, which gives her like 10,000 points, she's a nerdy rock climber too. But yes, we all approve of her. In fact I think David like's her more than his step brother. Haha!
So, in the end, I didn't do too many productive things this weekend, but I'm quite pleased about that. And it's off to work I go...
-Jess

Now this is too cool.

2009-05-31T17:04:00.001-07:00

Forestry Helitack Rappeler. How's that for the coolest effin job on earth?

A guide to falling through burning floors.

2009-05-31T11:52:00.001-07:00

3 years ago if you told me that I would be running into burning buildings at 19, I would probably have told you how awesome that would be.
Well, now at 19, I'm here to tell you how awesome that is.
Last night started off chill, we did some hose testing, ate dinner, went on a medical assist for some crazy dude, watched some SNL. You know, typical fire shift. Warze and I thought we would be terribly clever and yell to the fire gods "Man, I would really like it to be quiet tonight!" The last time Warze and I tempted fate like that we had the biggest fire of the year. That was the Wasilla Bible Church (Palin's Church) fire. So there I was, dead to the world at 2:30 in the morning, not expecting a call of any sort and we got dispatched for a wildland fire. My counterparts and I strolled our way downstairs knowing that it couldn't be a wildland fire because it had been raining non stop for the past 5 days. We figured somebody had seen a bon fire or something through the trees and called 9-1-1. Well, as we were tossing on our wildland gear we got dispatched for a fully involved structure fire. This led to some confusion as it was the same address but two totally different calls. Come to find out, it was a stone's throw away from the station and as we pulled out we saw flames. Big ones. And then the adrenaline kicked in.
We got there already packed up, pulled a 2 1/2 inch blitz line off the back, and went to the exterior in an attempt to knock it down so we could make entry. It's a decent sized fire, but part of the structure is still saveable. We were first engine in, so we only had 3 firefighters and 1 engineer. Our LT went and helped set up water supply while Shawn and I were on the 2 1/2. There I am trying to back up Shawn on the hoseline, my arms are screaming, my heart is pumping, I'm sucking down air, and we still don't have an all clear on the structure. Finally another crew shows up and we're able to make entry, Shawn and I run up and get new bottles really quickly and shoot back down to be second interior attack. "So there I was, fire all around me..." and I'm trying to think about 10 different things like not straight streaming a rollover, doing a search for any potential victims, keeping an eye out for any suspicious things, staying with my partner, and mainly, putting out the frapping fire! I got in there, started squirting water and they had me back out so they could rip down the ceiling. Meanwhile I'm out at the origin of the fire and I have black stuff all over my mask so I can't really see the gaping holes in the floor. My officer is out walking in front of me, so I just kind of follow his steps and suddenly I'm through the floor, up to my crotch in debris and my pride is hurt a little bit. Shawn gives me a hand out and I continue my merry way along. Not too long after that, Shawn is backing out humping me some hose, so I've got a chief in front of me and a chief behind me, and I fall through the floor AGAIN. This time the floor actually gave way beneath me and I landed on my ribs knocking the wind out of me. Then chief had a terribly clever little comment of "Hey there's a hole there, look out," as he lifted me out. After that little event, I was running out of my third bottle of air and so it was time to take a mandatory break. We weren't there too much longer, I sucked down some water and we were on our way.
Looking back, we did things textbook. We had an unknown entrapment in the building but didn't have enough people to set up a Initial RIT team in case the crew inside went down. We took the defensive fire approach and went with an exterior attack. Upon arrival of a second crew we made entry and confirmed an all clear. We saved a few of the bedrooms in the structure, too which is saying something if you saw this place when we pulled up.
All in all, the night was eventful. I got a ton of interior time, 3 hours of sleep, and now my helmet is covered in tar from that fire. It's sweet, I might actually have to get a new visor because it's got tons of black ickies on it. It's hard to express exactly what is so cool about a dirty helmet, but I think the biggest thing is that it shows off that you were fighting fire. One of my firefighter rockers is blackened, my helmet band is now permanently fused with the helmet, and I'm pretty sure I splattered tar on my joker sticker too. I'll have to take a picture and post it... It's pretty cool.
Now that I have forced everyone and their mother to listen to the logistics of the structure fire last night, I guess I'll get back to work. I have a 174 page manual on Basic Land Navigation that I've been avoiding for the last hour or two... I suppose I could make a dent in that.
Hi ho!
-Jess

Aha! Career Opportunity!

2009-05-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

I think I have a plan.
Flight Paramedic.
It's really hard to explain exactly why that's so perfect... But it is. See, I'll work 15 shifts a month of 24 hours. If someone between Anchorage and Fairbanks gets hurt so badly that they need a helicopter to pick them up and fly them to a hospital, we pick them up. So, essentially, it's like being a regular Paramedic except 1. you get to fly on a helicopter which is oh-so-awesome, and 2. you don't have to deal with any of the B.S. that goes along with working an ambulance, like lift assists, and idiots who think 9-1-1 is a taxi service. Plus the pay is awesome. AND when I'm not being a flight medic, I can play firefighter with Central.
The funny thing about being on a professional department these days is that you don't really fight a lot of fire. 95% of a fire department's calls are medically related. Maybe 1 in every 10 calls something is actually caused by fire. So, in order to make it to a full time department, you have to be cross trained. Nobody hires firefighters anymore. They hire Paramedics who have fire training. And thus I prove my point that even though I like firefighting a whoooole lot more than EMS, I have to be involved in both to have a career that I like.
The qualifications for flight medic are simple enough. 3-5 years in emergency services, preferred experience with helicopters, nationally certified paramedic, good communication skills, and must be able to read and speak english. By the time I get my paramedic's degree I will be more than qualified for that there position as I will have 6 years in emergency services and hopefully will have been doing helitack with Forestry for a few years. Cool? I think so.
In other news, last night hockey season started. We have an actual coach this year, it's kind of cool. I learned how to skate backwards, maintain balance, turn left AND right, and pass all in the spand of like 45 minutes. It's amazing what you can learn when someone actually knows what they are teaching you. I fell down though and busted my elbow up pretty good, I think it's time to invest in elbow pads because man I've got a big ol' bruise forming there!
As of late, the fire danger in the Mat-Su Valley has been really low, which means I've been working normal hours and I'm bored out of my mind! It's amazing how bored I get when things aren't catching on fire. Odd.
Tonight I'm working down at the station after I get off work at Forestry. It looks like it's going to be 9-5 and 6-6 today. Luckily I have Monday and Tuesday off this week. It will be really nice to have a real day off and actually get some sleep! David's schedule has changed and so now he's off on Mondays and Tuesdays as well. The stars have alligned.
And now, after this obnoxiously long post about nothing, I am off! I just got a new Green Arrow comic so I'm going to bury myself in that like the nerd I am.
-Jess

Retardant Drops

2009-05-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here at Mat-Su Forestry, we house one of Alaska's 3 Tankers. Tanker 52 has been busy this year with the 20,000 acre fire in McGrath, The Homer Fire, and some little drops here and there. John Borland, a photographer/firefighter friend of mine, took some pictures the other day of the tanker doing a retardant drop on one of our training fires. I thought someone out there would get a kick out of seeing these.

I wonder, I wonder...

2009-05-29T12:59:00.001-07:00

I've been inspired. I think it would be really, really cool to be on the helitack crew or even work to be a Helicopter Pilot for forestry. Helitack is neat, you just take your standard wildland firefighting techniques and take away the engine. Essentially you get dropped into the middle of a fire and put it out with remote pumps, swatters, and whatever you have on scene. You also get to help do bucket drops over fires. Super cool! Anyway, it's a week long class that I hope to take next year and get in there as an EFF Helitack Trainee. The other day we had a call that we were able to catch because the Helitack guys put it out with 5 gallon buckets full of water. The fire was inaccessible to engines, so by the time we sent out Pioneer Peak (the Mat-Su IA Hot Shot Crew) they had to hike in with their tools. It was pretty frappin cool!
I'm torn between Helitack and going on a crew. On the one hand I would really like to get onto a Hot Shot crew next year, or maybe even just a type two crew. I have the choice of trying for Gannette Glacier or Pioneer Peak. I'm not going to lie, it would be really cool to be the first girl on Pioneer Peak, but I might be just a little too lazy to run 12 miles a day just for PT. It's something to think about. It takes a ridiculous amount of conditioning to just get ready for the first week of training... It would be really cool to be in that kind of shape though. I guess it's something to think about.
So for the past two weeks, Bridget, Mike, David, and I have been getting up and going to the gym at 7:30 in the morning. It's really fantastic, because I have that nice sore workout feel in my core and it gets me a little boost in the morning. I feel a lot less guilty sitting in an office when I know I got up and did 45 minutes of PT this morning. Bridget and I's goal is to get into bikini shape by December when David, Mike, Bridget and I will be going on a cruise through the Bahamas and spending a few days in Disney World. It should be pretty darn fun. We're all looking forward to it. In fact with last week's pay alone, I can pay for the hotel, the cruise, the theme park tickets, and the food, for both David and I. Good thing we have frequent flyer miles, because Florida, here we come!
Thankfully it's been raining the past few days, so after 10 days without a day off, I got to take half a day on Wednesday. It was really, really nice. I've also been getting off at 5:00 everyday, so it's super exciting! It's like I have the rest of the day ahead of me, or something!
Tonight marks day 1 of the CMSFD hockey season. For the next 12 weeks, we have the rink once a week for scrimmages. The rest of the time we are training. It's really fun to get out there and work off some of that pent up energy. I mean seriously, who doesn't enjoy beating the crap out of their coworkers?
Well, I think that's about it for now. I'm sure nothing exciting will happen in the near future and I'll post about it.
-Jess

Exhaustion.

2009-05-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

. . . one word to put me in a nutshell this week. I was supposed to be off today and yesterday. Instead I've been working a minimum of 12 hours since Saturday. I am physically and mentally pooped.
I worked 16 1/2 hours on Saturday for Forestry alone, add in the 6 hours of Central time from midnight to 6 am and that brings me up to 22.5 hours... Cool! I almost got payed for an entire day.
Anyway, yesterday I did the obstacle course that the hot shot crews set up... It consisted of a 100 foot hose pull both ways, carrying foam buckets up a hill, ski jumping a board, flipping a tractor tire, carrying foam buckets back down a hill, jumping on top of a log 20 times, hitting a log with a 10lb sledge 20 times, 5 pull ups, 20 push ups, and 20 situps... Repeat until dead. I did it once just to see if I could. It wasn't that hard the first time, but do it a few times and I bet it kicks your ass. Unfortunatly there was a bunch of hay in the air so naturally my asthma/allergies acted up and I was hacking for 2 hours. It was icky.
So yeah. Yesterday we got out of here at 2100, which was something new. I only had to work 12 hours! The cool thing was that it was Memorial Day so we all got paid double time and a half. That's about $40 bucks an hour for me. SCORE!
And now, I take my leave to melt my brain with fire reports. Hi Ho.
-Jess

Medic Assists of Infinite Doom and Destruction

2009-05-23T11:33:00.001-07:00

Last night I pulled a twelve down at the station playing firefighter. I got to leave Forestry after only 8 hours and go to 6-1, so that made me happy. It happened to be family appreciation night, so Mom, Dad, and Helen stopped in for a bit. I was in the midst of showing them our Jaws and Cutters when we got paged out for a 4-wheeler accident. I realized then and there that I need to, at the very least, get my EMT 1 and start running a few ambulance shifts. When I barely know how to hold C-Spine and have no idea where the seat collars are on the ambulance, there's a problem. I felt so incompetent at that moment, it was just time to give it up and say, alright, Jess - no wasting your money travelling this semester, get you're flippin EMT 1! I should have done it last semester, it's true. But, alas, things didn't work out that way.
In other news, the 4-wheeler accident was interesting enough, I met a trooper named Allen, he was pretty cool. The rest of the evening was reasonably slow until about, as usual, 15 minutes after I went to sleep. There I was mouth wide open, snoring up a storm, dreaming dreams of embers flying when the pager goes off for EMS. No worries, not my problem, then they poke their little heads into our dorm and say "Rescue 61 is being paged out for this too." Ah! Damn! So, we got on scene at 1:00am, briefly looked at the asthmatic patient, loaded them into the ambulance, and moved on with our lives. The rest of the night was free and easy. I slept like the dead.
I got home at 6:15, climbed into bed for another 2 hours, and then pulled myself free of the wonderful, warm, welcoming sheets just in time to get to work by 9:00.
*Sigh* I miss my bed.
On a plus side, as of 3:00 yesterday, I am entirely on overtime! Woo woo woo! Bring on the hours!
I got to see my mom, sister, dad, and nieces for about... 2 minutes today. That's thanks to my 30 minute lunch break. Now maybe if the Bakery would just move it's sorry little butt a little closer to the Forestry office, there wouldn't be a problem. But nooo...
Well, I'm hoping to get Tuesday off this next week for several reasons. I am scheduled to take a mandatory training for an hour on our new payroll system, David is off, and it's Central Training Night. We'll see what happens.
And now I flee to work on fire reports.
-Jess Out

Ah, yes... Routine.

2009-05-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

I'm getting personalized plates for my car... I'm thinking JOKR52 as a little inside joke. JOKER was already taken, I was a little sad, but unsurprised. With the release of The Dark Knight, everybody and their mom is obsessed with the Joker. Slightly obnoxious because people claim to be an expert on the character and they've never even read a comic book. I maintain that I have thought the Joker was totally frickin awesome for at least 4 years. Anyway, when it came time to choose a station mascot over at 5-2, we had to find something that was 5-2 in a nutshell. The Jokers just seemed appropriate. We're the goofballs of the department, we're always smiling, we play a whole lot of poker, and you can't have a full deck without us. So JOKR52 throws in a little bit of my nerdiness with firefighting, I thought it appropriate.
Other car related business: this week has been full of mini ordeals. All sorts of crap has been happening! First off, Chevy won't stop calling me, and I don't know how many different people I've explained to that I work 14 hour days and get a 30 minute lunch break.. I can't stop by during business hours unless they want to wait for me to get there at 10:30 at night! So they want pay stubs, my signature on some things, and the title to my car. That's all well and good except up until this morning, my car that I've had for the past 2 years was still in the name of the previous owner. Yes. I know thats ridiculous. Welcome to my life. I couldn't find my one pay stub from forestry, and I threw away my last Borough check. I need to get everything to them by today. And that is likely impossible unless I make David my errand boy. Even if I do make David run the stuff down there, he can't forge my signature, so ah!
Besides the car causing me extreme amounts of stress, things are fine. I've missed 4 structure fires with Central, and that is killing me. I get distracted and not on my "A Game" when I'm missing a big fire. It drives me up a flippin wall. But it's ok, the one guarentee of being a firefighter is that things will continue to burn down. I will have many a structure fire to attend to in the future.
Bridget, Mike's wife, and I have begun going to work out in the morning. We get up at 7 and head down to the AK Club and go swimming, running, or lift weights. It's great because I really need that 45 minutes of exercise in my daily life. It helps me sleep at night. This morning I put her through the wringer with arm exercises. She's never lifted weights before, so I tried to take it easy with 3 reps of the firefighter's arm workout at 5-15 pounds. Should have been easy... But I think she'll be feeling it in the morning. Yesterday we swam laps for 30 minutes, that was fun. I need to do something that makes my stomach muscles scream the next day. Maybe that will be a goal for tomorrow.
So yes, what a week it has been so far. And it's only Thursday!
Tuesday I hope I have the day off because I need to take a class, go get my car detailed, see David, and go to training.
Yipes. My paycheck better be good.
-Jess

Thrown for a loop. . .

2009-05-20T10:44:00.000-07:00

Well it's been an eventful couple of days.
Sunday evening I got to fight fire and almost got to rescue someone from a lake. I got to go put out a dryer fire which was reasonably enjoyable. And then the Water Rescue Team got called out for someone in distress on a lake. Unfortunatly, he swam to shore before we could rescue him.
In other news, I bought a car. A new one. It's an 09 Chevy Aveo, "Carbon colored". I.E.: It's black. It gets 37 miles to the gallon and cost me about $13,000. I think I'm going to name her Jasmine. I figure I could either make the payments month by month to build credit, or I could pay it all off this summer. While on the one hand it's a pretty sweet deal to have an 09 car completely paid off, in 5 years or so, David and I might be wanting to buy a house and having that car loan paid on time every time will definitely build my credit. So, I think in the end, I'll just set aside enough to make all the payments and pay for the insurance until next summer and build up my credit.
I just found out that one of the people I went to high school with is married, which is c-r-a-z-y. Apparently they got married in their living room. That has totally and completely taken me by surprise and I am now sitting here thinking about marriage and all the ridiculous expectations that come along with it. One thing that is for certain: I'm not getting married in my living room.
But I digress. I've been looking into cruises because they are ridiculously cheap and David and I have to use some frequent flyer miles before they all expire. We were thinking of going to Disney World with Mike and Bridget for 3 nights and then taking a 4 night cruise through the Bahamas. What's crazy about the whole thing? I figured out a way to get us that for just $400 bucks a person for the whole week. The only thing we would have to do is pay for theme park tickets, food, and transportation. Mike, Bridget, and I talked it over last night, and we're going to shoot for December 14 - 21. Woot man, Disney World.
So anyway, I'm working a lot, enjoying it reasonably enough, and getting used to the long hours with no days off. Overall, I am happy with the job and will have no idea what to do with myself when it comes time to have a life again. What to do, what to do, what to do.
As per usual, I'm torn between going to college or travelling. I really like the idea of going with a friend, Paul seemed mildly interested. However, I suppose if I am going on a cruise then I don't really NEED to go traveling all over the place for the semester. . . Whatever. I do what I want.
And now I want is to get off this blog site and continue my search for cheap cruises.
-Jess

Elmer's Glue and Office Chairs Galore

2009-05-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

I worked 14 hours yesterday. I worked 13 hours the day before. Today it's raining!
I got out of bed this morning and saw the down pour, then proceeded to jump for joy. Because when it's raining, that means I can have a life! Yes, Yes, I know how unreasonable that is.
Anyway, what's been happening? Right now I'm sitting at my desk watching the Smokejumper's Ship take off back to Fairbanks. In the last couple of days, it's been hot and dry. Alaska has literally been exploding with fires North, South, East, and West. The whole world is on fire, and I've been at a desk dispatching it. Next year, I will not be at a desk dispatching. In fact, it looks like David will probably be the one at this desk doing this job because, unlike myself, he has no problems being inside on a computer when it's beautiful outside and things are on fire.
I just have to keep telling myself how much money I'm making. It does kind of make things a little bit better.
So yes, all of my friends have been sent down to Kenai to fight the humongous fire going on down there. It's no Miller's Reach, but it's a pretty decent fire. It's grown to over 300 Acres in the last week... Pretty impresive if you ask me. Bowzr, John, Frank, Jake, Tommy, and a Greg have all gone down on task forces. Losers.
I can go on fires at the end of the summer... I hope.
Alright, well I guess there's not much else to say. It'll be a slow day in Dispatch. Here's to getting off after 8 hours!
-Jess

Pictures from climbing at Chickaloon

2009-05-14T10:43:00.001-07:00

David and I went climbing with John and Tracy on Tuesday, here's some pictures John took.

Photo Credit: John Borland. www.morffed.com

The Wonderful Weekend

2009-05-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I signed my life away by coming in to work today... I wasn't going to have yesterday off, but I did thanks to my oh-so-awesome supervisor.
There must be something very clinically wrong with me, because I voluntarily turned my pager off, went out of the service area, and didn't go to training on one of the busiest wildland days of the year. So yeah, rather than running into burning forests yesterday, I went rock climbing with David, John, and Tracy in Chickaloon. We just spent a couple of hours enjoying the sunshine and climbing a few routes.
After we got back from Chickaloon, David and I went grocery shopping then went to see Star Trek with his siblings. It was a fun day... We didn't really do anything productive, and that was just fine. It sure was weird skipping training, that's the first time I've ever done that. It's odd to think that for the last year every single Tuesday night has been filled, except for the time I was off on the road trip.
On a slightly less fun note, I discovered my car is leaking all sorts of fluids. So, I'm taking the step. I'm getting a new car... As soon as I get paid.
Monday was a fun day. I did a 12 hour shift down at the station, hung out with David, learned the opening part of Dueling Banjos, burnt some pizza, sent a guy to the hospital, and otherwise just had a good time. Here goes another work week... :D
-Jess

Voila! Fuego!

2009-05-10T19:50:00.000-07:00

My goodness... What a week it's been.
It's been one of those weeks where I can't really remember the previous days. Tomorrow and Tuesday I have days off and I need them because I am totally and completely fried.
Last night I was stupid. I took Brian's duty night knowing that I would be up all night long, and I was right. It started in the early evening when we went to go do a medical assist for a guy who had broken his leg. No big deal, I figured since we didn't get another call for four hours that that would be the end of it, so I went to bed. My mistake. I hadn't been asleep for 15 minutes when the tones went out for a "fire underneath a conex". It, of course, was nothing, but it roused me from my sleep. About 1:30 I crawled back into bed, convinced that I might be able to get 4 hours of sleep before it was time to go back home. Negative. The tones went out again at 3:30, this time for something real... An ever growing grass fire that was starting to light off the trees. We had a huge confusion and quite a slow response time. We had to take two trucks, which meant that left me as the only one on the crew who was allowed to get their hands dirty. And believe you me, Alaska at 3:30 in the morning at 40 degrees and a leaking hose that is spraying in your face. . . undesirable. I was cold, I was wet, I was having fun. I single handedly put out that fire, I felt pretty awesome after that. Naturally we didn't get back until 5:30, so by then it was time to wash the trucks and go home. I got home, dropped my clothes, jumped in the shower to warm up and get the smell of furbish and dirt off me, then climbed into bed for 2 hours of sleep before it was time to head off to be an oh-so-awesome dispatcher.
The cool thing about working for forestry dispatch and moonlighting as a firefighter, is not only do you get to put out the fire, then you get to do all the followup paper work and see what the cause was. When our fire investigation officer, Tom, told me what the cause was I laughed. Spontaneous combustion. I kid you not. Apparently they had put some dry leaves and grass cuttings into a black garbage bag and it attracted so much heat they just burst into flames... How's that for bizarre?
So, after that little evening, I'm pretty flippin exhausted here today. I'm looking forward to my days off tomorrow and Tuesday... Hopefully I will actually get them. Tonight, I plan to go see Star Trek. Hopefully I won't pass out on the drive to or from. Onward and upward then I suppose...
-Jess

Taco Bell Destruction Pictures

2009-05-10T00:14:00.001-07:00

I take the Cutter's Edge to Taco Bell.
Squeak and I work on breaching the exterior wall
My team and I work on breaching an interior wall
Greg makes the first hit and says NO to applying inside!
April breaks glass like a pro!
Secondary Search team gets ready for orders.

Casey and his team get ready to go interior.
Ken makes the first break... Very happily!
Taco Bell... Before the destruction.

When the forest's black the wallet's green

2009-05-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

People seem to have this weird idea that there are no houses in the Valley, so we never get any structure fires. Surprisingly, there are a lot more house fires then people know about. In fact there's so many that they don't make the paper much anymore. Central alone, because we have such a huge service area, on average gets 3-6 house fires a month during the winter time, but we also do Mutual Aid with 4 other departments. If you look at times like November/December, when it gets really frappin cold outside, we can have 10 or 12 structure fires, not to mention chimney fires, car accidents, car fires, CO calls, and everything else on the planet. I mean hey, we're no New York or Detroit, but for Alaska, that's pretty busy. I was just thinking about how the summer can actually be way slower for us just because all we have to do is put out grass fires! Rant complete.

In other news, yesterday it rained which meant I got to go home on time! Hoorah! It was really a change of pace to only work 8 hours instead of 12 or 14. It's a little different too because where I'm perfectly used to working 12 hour shifts at the station, usually half of that time is spent in bed only getting up if we get a call. It's slightly frowned upon if you fall asleep and drool all over the place at Forestry.
This week is interesting because I'll be working my typical work week with two additional night shifts... So, I'm guarenteed at least 50 hours at Forestry, then another 30 with Central... But hey, that's how you bring in the money and don't have to work the rest of the year, 80 hour weeks!
So, we settled on a name for the snake, Ziegfried, but just Zeke for short. We got him a tree to climb in yesterday, as well as a fake skull that he can slither in and out of... It's very cute.
My hand is still super tight from ripping apart Taco Bell on Tuesday. I can always tell that I've been on a fire because the next day I try to use my thumb to do something like press a button on my cell phone and I don't have enough muscle control to do so. It was worth it though, honestly how often do you get to go to town for 3 hours breaking glass and playing with chainsaws? I'm hoping to drop by 6-1 and upload the pictures from that... They should be pretty sweet. It's been a couple of weeks since we've had a structure fire, it's a sure sign of summer.
I'm starting to dig doing the logistics side of firefighting. Granted, it's not as fun as getting to run into burning buildings, but it's just for 4 months, so why the heck not? Essentially until Forestry arrives on a scene, I get to give any Structural Fire Department Resources orders. Every once in a while it gets really gratifying to tell your commanding officer how, where, and what to respond to. I'm making enough money to get me through the winter and go to college... What else does a person need? Ah, happiness.
-Jess

The Destruction of Fast Food Restaurants!

2009-05-06T10:35:00.001-07:00

Much to Wasilla's surprise, last night over 15 fire trucks were seen in the Target Mall parking lot at Taco Bell with white smoke pouring out and chain saws hacking in to the building. My phone kept ringing with people wondering what was going on at Taco Bell! I couldn't answer anybody though, because I was busy ripping down signs, breaking windows, and having contests with rivaling stations about who could breach a wall the fastest and who could take off the hings of a door faster. We ripped that Taco Bell to shreds! It was so much fun!
But I digress. You see, Taco Bell is scheduled for demolition tomorrow and, thanks to our FSA guys, they donated the building to us for the evening to run drills and destroy what we would. So everyone got to experience breaking tempered glass, breaching a wall, cutting through cement with a K12, seeing what the Cutter's Edge would cut through, trying to break through cement and tile with an axe, and other fun little adventures. It's hard to put my finger on what was the most fun, but the contest between 6-5 and 6-2 to see who could breach a wall faster with the most unconventional tools was definitely entertaining.
In the end though, I think overall just ripping Taco Bell to shreds for the evening was just fun in itself. Every once in a while, running into burning buildings has it's perks and this was one of those times. So now I'm tired, at work, and I can't make a fist because I was hacking too many things with an axe and cutting with a chain saw... But man it was fun!
-Jess

Ssssssnake!

2009-05-05T16:40:00.001-07:00

Well, after seeing You Can't Take It With You the other night at CHS, I got to play with their live snakes! It was pretty cool, I think I have become a snake person. So, David and I went and bought a snake yesterday. It's cute. It's a baby Albino California King. I'll take pictures tonight, but here's a google image of what it pretty much looks like:

The Blunders of a Probie Dispatcher

2009-05-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

Naturally, I'm up until 2:00 in the AM. Of course. Well, when you live in this particular part of Wasilla and know what happens around here and you here very loud, abrupt screaming outside... As a concerned citizen I called the cops. I felt kind of stupid, but I guess it's better to be safe than sorry. Maybe they welcomed the call, who knows? Either way, I hope the woman screaming hysterically is OK. I was a little too freaked to go look myself.
In other news, today was cool. I kind of enjoyed being a dispatcher for the most part. I liked getting to be in command of scenes, at least logistically. I don't think this will be a career for me, but I definitely think it's pretty cool for now.
Well, I guess I'm going to try to go back to bed... So much for being a concerned citizen. I hope that lady is alright.
-Jess

He's a lumberjack and he's ok...

2009-05-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

It's beautiful outside, 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and I'm sitting at a desk in an office with big windows. But hey, I'm getting paid.
I have, however, been alerted to the fact that I can work out when we're not busy. So tomorrow: it's in with the kettlebells and out with the office chair! At least for a little while. Until something catches on fire.
Tonight I am going to do something or I could possibly go crazy. Hopefully I can get down to the station to work out or at least go for a bike ride.
GRARG! IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL OUTSIDE!!

Day's Off Rock!

2009-04-27T19:04:00.000-07:00

The interesting thing that hit me today was how cool days off are. I knew I wasn't going to adore a 9-5 desk job, but the great thing is I really appreciate not having to work today! I slept until 11:30, woke up and watched some Smallville. David and I went grocery shopping around 3:30, so now I'm stocked with delicious and healthy food.
See, it's weird to me. I've been working for 5 years, but it's never felt like work before. I guess because mom and dad own the bakery and they were my bosses it wasn't like really working. And I love working for the fire department, so it doesn't feel like work, it just feels like I get paid for my hobby. In fact on my days off with Central I am usually just bored and hoping to get to go to work. Go figure. In the end, I feel like this is really my first real job, even though it's totally not.
In the end, I really love getting to not work today! I can just go on a call if something catches on fire. I like this whole day off thing.
Today I bought Kettlebells! They are awesome, I can now aim my workouts toward firefighting motions and not just lifting and running. Cool cool.
I'm going swimming tonight with Aaron, Paul, Mark, and Corey. Should be fun.
Well, I'm off.
-Jess

I'm a dispatcher, yes I am...

2009-04-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, what can you really say about government jobs that allow you to sit at a desk for 8 hours. Hurry up and wait. Stand by to stand by. Meh, what else is new?
So, who knew it, but Alaska in April actually has a few fires. Not a lot, but some. The area has pretty much cleared itself of snow, so this gives way to dry, dead, grass for miles and miles. Luckily for us, it's been raining! So, you know... there's nothing to do. Until 2:00 in the morning when you're on shift.
I think that I have finally discovered the secret to getting calls on night shift! See, all you have to do is want to sleep through the night and you will be up all over your service area all night! I learned that lesson last night. I escaped from dispatch at approximately 1700 hours and was at 6-1 by 1800. I was so happy to be out of the office that I was a productivity monster! I jumped in the engine and checked those SCBA's with lightning expertise! I started 10 saws, checked their gas and oil, and made sure the chains were on! I checked every compartment in the engine! I washed the towels! I took out the trash! I even scrubbed the inch of dust off the sprinkler system pipes! I was just so happy to be able to move, I was pretty much willing to do anything.
It was a pretty dull night up until I wanted to go to sleep. We watched Deadliest Warrior on Spike. That was quite interesting, they take classic fighters throughout history, examine their weapons and fighting styles then simulate what would happen if two of them fought and who would win. Last night it was Spartan Vs. Ninja. The Spartan won by a long streak. Of course. Anyway, midnight hit and I was in bed when we decided we would go on a few medical assists. We came home, I went back to bed, we got a grass fire. Ironically, I'm standing by as a structural firefighter after a long day of forestry dispatching and the only fire we get is a wildland fire. I guess it was bound to happen.
So, yes. We put out the fire, loaded up some hose, went back to the station, and went to bed. Then I got up at 5:45, cleaned my designated section of engine, threw my gear in the car, and went home. An hour after I got home, I got up and went to work. So here I sit, 2 more hours on the clock, a fresh coat of rain outside, and nothing new to do.

In other news, Friday, David, Mom, Christine, Josh, and I all went out for dinner at the Moose's Tooth and then saw Spamalot. I wish I hadn't been so tired. I had a good time, but I don't think I had quite the appreciation for it that I wanted to. It was quite hilarious though.
Today I have spent my time reading articles on Firehouse.com and researching Kettlebells. I think I may have to order myself a set of those wicked cool weights.
Annnd I'm off!
-Jess

McDonald's Tastes Better After You've Been Tortured

2009-04-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have one of those moments where you ask yourself why you are doing something and the only conclusion you can come to is that you must be clinically insane?
I had one of those moments today as I was on my 7th lap around the track at Wasilla High School. Today was Central's Forestry Firefighting Pack Test. By Forestry Standards, an individual should be able to do a 3 mile level grounded hike in 45 minutes with a 45 pound pack on their back. If one passes the Pack Test then during the summer if we get any forestry calls in our district you can respond and get paid forestry wages. People rarely fail the Pack Test, because frankly, 3 miles in 45 minutes is not that difficult. No, where the pure unadulterated hell comes in is when you get 30 cocky firefighters with something to prove trying to get bragging rights for the next hour. In order to properly win bragging rights, you must set up challenges beforehand with people you know you can beat, come in the top 10, be at least under 40 minutes, and you need to beat the really high ranking officers. This year everyone did quite well. The slowest time was 41.26 minutes which is pretty darn good!
I signed my own death lease when I aimed to beat my time last year without doing any training, which was 39.32. Well, I came in with a solid 36.00 minutes and came in 6th place. I feel really good inside! Outside however, in my legs, shoulders, thighs, butt, back, arms, and neck... Well, that's a different story. In the end, I did lap the two chiefs who were testing and I beat out my lieutenant. . . Plus, I was the only girl who tested. So hey, for the next week, I rock!
Ultimately, it was a good experience for a number of reasons:
1. I don't have to do it again until next year!
2. I learned that I'm in better shape than I thought I was.
3. I'll have my red card in a week or two.
And most importantly:
4. I can eat McDonald's and rocky road for dinner tonight completely guilt free!

Insanity, it's a wonderful thing when you're working towards ultimate bragging rights! Besides, what's a little competition between friends? I'm off to take a shower... because man, I wreak!
-Jess

Fire to fight and spaghetti to make

2009-04-20T21:24:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to think back on how many fires I have fought in the past week. Sunday I had three, Monday I think I had one, Tuesday a shop caught on fire, Wednesday, nothing, Thursday we had the first wild land fire of the season, then Friday afternoon we had a house fire in Houston. . . All and all, it's been a really busy week! I know I've done over 30 hours of just fire calls! Yipes. What a busy and really awesome week. Proverbial though it may be, be careful what you wish for!
Man!
Well, other than be slammed up against the wall by fires as of late... So many I can't remember them all!... Not a whole lot has been happening. I've had a few fire shifts, the weather is getting nice, and Wednesday I start my forestry dispatching job. So, yes.
Today I had an enjoyable little outing, I did my laundry, stood by for a car fire, picked up my mom from the chiropractor, went on a walk with David, got my bike out of the shed and worked on it and now I'm huuungry!
Only two more days left of freedom, my lord... I have to eat ice cream and watch Smallville!
-Jess

And what have you been doing with your time, Jess? (Photos by John Borland)

Ah, yes. Contradiction.

2009-04-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I called Forestry back, they gave me my dispatching job back. So thus, I am employed for the summer! I start the 27th at 9:00. Things are going well. I got my borough check today so I'm going to go buy a Wii! Yay!
-Jess

Here we go again. . .

2009-04-13T21:03:00.001-07:00

Well, I applied for a job as a Park Maintenance Technician I for the Mat-Su Borough Parks Service. Essentially, it's a park janitor. You do what you have to to earn money I suppose. . . In any case, I figure it will be a fun job, assuming I get it, and I will get to be outside, which is kind of where my priorities lie right now.
Danny said I could probably get my job with Forestry back if I wanted to, but I kind of decided that I didn't want to sit inside for 12 hours a day during my summer. So, alas, it is not meant to be. While I would love to earn way too much money and go gallivanting around the world for a few months, it is definitely not a once in a lifetime opportunity. Plus, I kind of have some other priorities right now, like working on my documentary of the fire department. I talked to my old drama director who owns a video business and he's going to give me a hand making this one killer show. So, hopefully, it'll turn out!
So, next summer, we'll plan on a job as a forestry firefighter, not a dispatcher. I don't think I could handle it, sitting in the office and wanting to scream. I'm just not an inside kind of person. Of course, you wouldn't be able to tell that by me sitting on my butt all day watching Smallville. :P
Last night was an interesting duty night, I fought 3 fires yesterday and ended up being on a random "smell of gas in the residence" call. It was fun enough. That ROs had a really cool dog that was desperate for attention. Danny and I naturally obliged her and gave her a big rub down and a scratch behind the ear.
So, I guess the real question is: What's up next?
There's no hope of getting on the hose testing crews this year, because it's going to become the job of duty crews. So, no work there. I'm taking Firefighter I next month, so that will be cool! I will be a nationally certified firefighter then... It's kind of exciting. Naturally, in the fall I'll be taking the Rescue Tech class, and then from there who knows what the heck I'm going to be doing!
David and I have discussed the idea of me going into the paramedics program opening up at the local college, and I think it's probably going to be a good deal. Frankly, full time departments aren't hiring firefighters anymore. They want Paramedics with firefighting experience. And if that's the way it has to be, so be it. I will go get a degree in ditch doctoring.
That's about it for now, I've been doing sit-ups and watching Smallville so far this evening, I might continue to do that. Tomorrow I need to find some frappin work! I love sitting inside doing nothing and all, but sooner or later I'm going to go batty!
-Jess

Fire Video

2009-04-13T01:38:00.000-07:00

Video from the fire last month... I was first engine in, where we layed 1000' of 5" hose for water supply and then christened our new Aerial Platform.

Fires to fight with brownies in the oven!

2009-04-13T00:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a flame filled Easter!
Today I was awoken by an attic fire at 10ish. Booked it to the station, made it out on the Tanker and extinguished the attic fire. We put it out with an APW, easy enough.
After the fire, I went to the Inn and made a huge brunch for David, Mike, Bridget, Tracy, and myself. It was pretty good. I went home early because I was tired for reasons unknown. I went home, read my book, hung out with David. Then I got a page for a truck fire. No big deal, except that by the time we got there both the siding on the building and the car next to the truck was being melted. It was neat, I got to spray some water and get my head in the flames. It was fun to eat a little smoke.
By the time I got back and cleaned up that fire, it was almost time to work. So, I made my way home, put on a better smelling shirt, let my pants dry, brushed my hair, and headed back to the station. We did our truck checks and headed to pick up some groceries and get gas for the Engine. Just as we were pulling in, we got another fire, a rekindle, a page to go back to the attic fire from the morning. Luckily, it didn't really do any damage, but we did I have to rip up the whole ceiling and pull a bunch of that Celulose insulation out. It sucked, but we did get the fire out. . . this time.
After the fire, we had a thousand and one tools to wash, the truck was messy, and the cellulose was friggin everywhere, but we did eventually get to the store.
I started cooking at about 9:30, made some pretty good stuff, balsamic vinaigrette, greek chicken, and fettucine. It was delicious. Plus the guys all bought in, so I actually made a little money on dinner. :D
So, now it's midnight, I've fought 3 fires in the last 12 hours, and I'm tired. I'm on shift until 6:00, then it's back down here for work. Chief said he'd put me to work organizing gear or something. . . Hey, a job's a job.
Now I'm watching Running Man with the EMS crews. I'm so tired!
-Jess

And the piledriving adventure ends!

2009-04-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

Annnnddd... I quit. Piledriving sucks.

And the Piledriving adventures begin!

2009-04-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

Joe mentioned the other day that he hasn't met very many 19 year-old girls who have to choose between a life as a welding piledriver or a firefighter. I told him he still hasn't met one, because I'm not choosing. We'll go with the best of both worlds, for now.
Today was my first day of my Piledriver's Apprenticeship. So far, the verdict is that I'm going to like it. I walked in, heard my instructor shout out the F-Bomb, and realized I was in the right place. We had basics today; you know, the usual... Introduction to piledriving, introduction to carpentry, introduction to sexual harassment, some basic safety stuff, some fire safety... I laughed when they told me there were only 3 classes of fire, A, B, and C. I laughed because that's what we teach elementary schoolers.
Truth be told, I know I'm not going to like this as much as I like firefighting. Unfortunatly, being a firefighter doesn't pay the bills, yet. I figure I'll go as far as my Journeyman's then see where the road takes me. If I love piledriving, I will by all means stick with it, but either way I think I'll be applying for a full time firefighting position.
Other options are still open, though. There's always the thought that I could do two weeks on two weeks off on the Slope and be a member of both Central Mat-Su FD and the Conoco Phillips/BP FD. I kind of like that idea.
Anyway, here we go again, I have to be up in less than 8 hours, so I should probably head towards bed. Tomorrow I get to wear my oh-so-awesome Carhartt Overalls! Woo Woo Woo!
-Jess

Aha!

2009-04-01T18:42:00.001-07:00

Well, I weighed in today for our firefighter fitness competition and since January I have gained 5 pounds. . . OF MUSCLE!
I am almost 170lbs, but my body fat has dropped. Woo woo woo!
Haha.
I start Piledriving classes monday. I'm so excited!
-Jess

The trouble with poet is how do you know it's deceased?

2009-03-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I turned down my forestry dispatch job officially today and am starting my Piledriver Apprentice classes on Monday. I have to do that through May 1st and then I'm off to be a grunt in the field.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I am giving a station tour to Bridget's after school groups. I'm looking forward to that. . .
I'm listening to the Sweeney Todd Soundtrack right now. I forgot how much I LOVE Alan Rickman! Ooooh evil. . .
I want to go on a walk down to return my movies.
Saturday night I got a good head start on my Documentary while I was on duty crew. I got Beebe making Peanut Butter Ice Cream, crews hanging out, conversations, work outs, stock footage, halls, and then a fire happened! So I changed out the tape and handed the camera to one of the medics. It looks so cool! I'm super excited!!
Today I haven't even left the house, I spent the whole day cleaning my apartment thoroughly. I still need to do some fine touches on the entry way, but so far it looks awesome! I even vacuumed the couches! Soooo clean!
Well, I need to get out of this ridiculously hot apartment, so off I go!
-Jess

So many decisions!

2009-03-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

Odd. The economy is in a constant spiral of death and destruction right now and my career opportunities are blossoming before me.
I got the Forestry job. . . But today the Piledriver's and Diver's Union called me and offered me the apprenticeship I had my hopes set on for months. Huh. I was at a brief standstill while I was slightly confused about what to do. I asked my chief officers their opinion and they pretty much told me I would be an idiot not to take the union job. Do I want to sit in an office all summer watching the beautiful days pass me by, or do I want to play with molten metal, get paid too much money, come out with my Journeyman in 4 years. . . Hm. What a hard decision.
-Jess

This is a madhouse, feels like being home.

2009-03-23T00:23:00.001-07:00

Well, so much has happened.
I got the job with Forestry! I start April 20, so I have about a month to kill and be irresponsible. I'm enjoying it thus far.
Last night I went and saw the Banff Mountain Film Festival at UAA. I've been inspired to take another climbing trip and video tape it this time. The winners were pretty good, my problem was I was sitting there going "I can do this so much better!" So, I guess I'm going to have to.
My priority is my fire documentary right now, though.
I've spent the last few days running in and out of Anchorage and spending too much money. I bought some new clothes at Old Navy that I really like and I did a few other things here and there. I got some new shoes at REI using gift certificates, 20% off coupons, and my Dividend. 100 pair of shoes free! Kind of cool.
I'm expecting my Tax Return to be deposited into my account any day now... I'm hoping it comes sooner rather than later.
Huh. Redoubt just blew. Cover up the computer!
-Jess

There's something happening in here, what it is ain't exactly clear.

2009-03-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

I downloaded the Forrest Gump Soundtrack and have been listening to For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield way too much. I love that song. Everyone knows it, "Stop children what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down!"
Totally awesome.
So. Me.
I, have been doing absolutely nothing productive as of late. Besides the fire last Thursday, I haven't done anything physical. I did do ten push-ups today and 5 pull ups because I felt guilty for having chicken strips and jo-jos as my only meal. I have just been so completely unmotivated to do anything. Sleeping late, eating crap, doing nothing good. . . You know how it is. Last night I was up until 4:00 beating John's Wife, Tracy, in Monopoly 3 times. I royally beat her. Repeatedly.
I feel so weird because I'm just unstressed and relaxed and I feel good. It's been so long since I've had nothing to worry about, it's just coming as a shock to my system. I haven't been to the gym in almost a month, partly due to my Advanced Class, but mostly due to my laziness. I really want this Forestry job so that I can stop having nothing to do!
Speaking of the Forestry job, I had my interview today that I think wen't reasonably well. Hopefully I will get it and then lose my summer to making money! Then I can go on a crazy all out trip wherever the heck I want! That's the plan, at least. We'll see how quickly I can spend $30,000 in the months following Forestry season. Right now, however I'm so BROKE! I have like 50 bucks to my name to get me gas and food until Friday where hopefully I will have gotten paid for my Advanced Class. (Keeping fingers crossed)
We'll see.
Well, I'm off to bigger and better things. Like sleep.
-Jess

"...I ain't no fortunate son..."

2009-03-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

What a good week... I got to spend a bunch of time with David, had a good fire, got some cool pictures, got my birthday present from David today, and possibly landed myself a job with Forestry!
I'm excited... and I have more pictures. Fire pictures are credited to John Borland, www.morffed.com

New Fire!

2009-03-13T14:38:00.001-07:00

Hahaha, awesome picture! Me on the roof of the fire last night.

Just like witches at black masses!

2009-03-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

I went and saw the Watchmen again today, it was still awesome!
Anyway, I just attempted death by taxes. TurboTax says it is going to make doing my taxes easy, so simple a child could do it. No No. TAXES SUCK! I need my mom.
Tomorrow I am talking to the Chief about starting my department documentary. I really want to concentrate on firefighting in Alaska and the brotherhood of a paid-on-call department. I think a look into the professionalism and dedication of our volunteers while having to deal with everything else in their lives could be a really cool angle... I have a vision. In my mind, I'm tossing around a few different titles, but "Fire In Ice" seems to be sticking. My theory: If Michael Moore can do it, anyone can. I want to start filming soon, get all my live action footage done by July 4th, finishing with the parade and the waterball session on Independence Day, and get all my face to face interviews done by August. Post Production editing done by September, preview it with the department, then enter it in the Anchorage Film Festival in October. We'll see how it goes!
On another note, Paul and I are planning another Road Trip for next fall. We're going to leave the day we get our PFD's and when we run out of money, we'll come back. We really want to hit the West Coast, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, New Mexico... Places I didn't really get to go when I went on the trip last year. We want to go spelunking and go to a bunch of the National Parks. I think it'll be fun, just Paul and I on the road for a few months. I'm looking forward to it.
David and I are talking about postponing the wedding because I'm going nuts. When I told him I was worried about getting tied down he just kind of laughed at me and asked me how I ever thought he would be able to tie me down. That put me at ease. I don't know, I think I'm having a bit of cabin fever mixed with the doubts of everyone around me. It just feels a little stressful. So we'll probably postpone it for 2011. But we're going to wait a few months to decide a date.
Well, it's 1:30 and I have a niece to babysit in the morning. So I best be heading to bed.
-Jess

Generals gathered in their masses...

2009-03-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

I love not having to work for my parents! L.O.V.E.
For example:
This week I worked at the station, went on 3 structure fires, learned to grout and cut tile, got to see David, and still had time to go see the Watchmen at midnight last night.
It's fantastic! The Fairview Loop Fire from Wednesday made the paper, too.

There was another picture in the ADN where you can see my air bottle off to the left, but alas, I couldn't find that picture. However, the officer in this photo is using the line that Mark and I had set aside for RIC.
Anywho, had 3 structure fires Wednesday, so while I would have liked to work my way down to the bakery to see my nieces, I was unable to do so.
Tonight I have Dive Training and tomorrow I have Ice Rescue Training. Sunday I am going to the Aces game dressed as Sparky the Fire Dog and getting payed 18 bucks an hour... Score!
So, needless to say I'll be busy for the next few days.
Last night, Mark, Richard, David, and I went to go see the Watchmen, which was awesome. The way they adapted it was interesting, they cut out some things here and there which, in a perfect world, they wouldn't have. However, due to movie length and the attention span of audiences, it was necessary. Overall, I give it 2 thumbs. I'll probably be going to see it again.
Anyway, I need to do something with my time, like look for a part time welding job. So off I go!
-Jess

Advanced Firefighter!

2009-03-04T02:28:00.000-08:00

I have passed my AFF class and am now pre-studying for my Firefighter 1. Then I'm done!
St. Patrick's Day is the Department Wide Awards Ceremony this year, I'm excited! I get my firefighter rockers for my helmet. Call me crazy, but I've been waiting a year for them and I can't wait!
In other news I am working exclusively for the fire department now since my parents laid me off. Dad is so suave, he asked me to take a permanent unpaid vacation. The turd.
Anyway, I'm actually really enjoying the amount of freedom I have. I just work the hours I was working at the bakery down at the station and I get to go on any calls I want! Plus I told all our officers if they needed someone to fill in on night shifts I was always available, so hopefully I'll be able to jump on the fifth seat in the next few weeks.
They dropped a butt load of heat on us in our training fire this weekend, it was sweet! I got some really cool pictures from the last few test days.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we did Firefighter safety and survival. This included fun little drills like going out head first down a second story ladder, throwing yourself out a window 20 feet off the ground, trying to get through a 3 foot wide box with wires strung through it in full PPE, fitting underneath a four-wheeler, and going through an obstacle course where we had to follow a hose through entanglement props, confined spaces, under plywood, slide down stairs, over couches, and other assorted goodies. It was a fantastic few days, I had a blast!
I have some really cool pictures! I might post more later.

This is the entanglement prop we had to go through!

The view from the top of the appropriately named 45' ladder, THE TORMENTOR.
Ladder Truck operations, always fun!
April, Bat. Chief Gibbe, and I hanging out during a training.
Me "ventilating" a steel window.

Cthulhu!

2009-02-24T00:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as I was running out of our apartment with half a shoe on and no thermals for my water rescue call, I saw this kid walking from the neighboring apartment building with a huge stuffed clown fish (I.E. Nemo). It has to be one of the cutest things I have ever seen...
Anyway, this morning David asked me if I had seen the kid with the huge stuffed Nemo walking with his mom. He too, said it was one of the cutest things ever. He has thus decided that we need to have kids so that they will do cute things to. He then proceeded to tell me that we would give our kids plushie Cthulhu's and told me about how they would probably dress it up like a firefighter so that Cthulhu could be like Mommy. He went on this huge rant about how awesome our children will be and pretty much endeared himself to my heart forever.
The funny thing about Cthulhu is it is from a short story written in the 1900's by H.P. Lovecraft. It's a "horror" story where Cthulhu is a demi-god that eats souls. It's written in what is now perceived as kind of a comical sort of way. Someone thought it would be a fantastic idea to take the description of Cthulhu, a mix between a man, a dragon, and an octopus, and make it into a plush toy thus spurring a cult following.
Below, David and I with Cthulhu. David has a frightful grin on his face because he thinks Cthulhu is just so cute. . . What a man.

With the end in sight...

2009-02-23T18:47:00.000-08:00

So close to the end of my Advance Firefighter class! I can taste it!
It was a busy weekend, Friday I had class until 10:00 then Saturday I got up at 8:00 and went to class. We did ladder evolutions, hose lines, and fire suppression until about 5:00 and then I got to go home and take a shower! But then it was off to work at 6-1 at 6:00. We had a ton of calls, but luckily they stopped around midnight and I got to sleep for a few hours. I got about 6 hours of sleep before heading back to class at 8:00 Sunday. I got out of class early to get some work done but ended up going home and passing out cold! David woke me up at 5:00 to go on a water rescue call for a supposed snow machiner who was lost on the Knik Glacier. He was found before we put the boat in the water, which is fantastic because that means we didn't have to clean anything or put any gear away.
I went to a Technical Rope Rescue training tonight, that was interesting... I was distracted for most of the thing. I was in the back hanging out with Mark and working on knots.
I'm just so exhausted! I have to go pick up Mom at Kali's at 12:30 and then get home god knows when. I had to pick up Dad last night and didn't get home until 3:00. I am sooo tired!
I need to get some vitamins.
-Jess

AFF Continues!

2009-02-19T01:09:00.000-08:00

Last night my class continued into Advanced Firefighting Strategy and Tactics. I.E.: Put the wet stuff on the red stuff.
It's really hard to beat a dead horse that much, but they successfully did it! That's alright though, sometimes you have to stress those points a thousand times so people will get it.
I stayed up last night and watched some Friends until David got home, so that was nice.
Today was nice and relaxing, it was my only day off between the fire department and the bakery, so I ran a few errands, babysat my nieces, and hung out with David. Later Tracy, Mike, and Bridget came over and watched Iron Man on Blu-Ray while making home made sausage biscuits with egg. It was fun.
I bought a super cheap digital camera today so I'm going to start taking tons of pictures on fires because I don't care if my camera breaks! MUAHAHA!
Well, I'm off to bed here.
-Jess

New Pictures

2009-02-15T22:04:00.000-08:00

Doom and Destruction

2009-02-15T21:47:00.000-08:00

Ahhhahaha... What a weekend.
Yesterday was a wonderful mix of torture and terribleness. Today, not as bad, but not fun. It's amazing how much boring training I have to go through to be an awesome firefighter. That's okay though, because at the end of this three week class, I will be Advanced and therefore ready to go for Firefighter 1. From there, another 3 week class, a state certification test, 9 college credits, and I NEVER have to do it again! . . . Until Firefighter 2.
Anywho, Today was advancing hose lines and water supply. Boring. We loaded and reloaded a lot of hose, tied knots, lifted some heavy stuff. But, I did get to be one of 4 people who got to leave class and go fight a fire halfway through. It's a perk of being an advanced with some actual experience. Just a small chimney fire, but it sure beats dressing hydrants and playing with fold-a-tanks.
Tomorrow I'm off to work, probably reasonably early because my parents are out of town so naturally the place will be a disaster zone.
I don't get to see David until Thursday because of my classes, his classes, my work schedule, and his work schedule... Then I won't see him until the following Wednesday. And this is why Advanced sucks.
I went to the gym tonight and hit the sauna, then the hot tub, then the pool, then the steam room... I feel much better. I might go rent a movie and watch it while steadily passing out.

Away with me!
-Jess

The Tower Of Hell

2009-02-14T22:44:00.001-08:00

My advanced firefighter class started this week and I can already feel the effects of me piling too much onto my plate. Today was our first all day outdoor training. We were put through one of the many firefighter obstacle courses that exists. Ours consisted of climbing up a ladder to the second story, climbing through a window, grabbing a 50lb hotel load and climbing the stairs to the third story, dropping the hotel load, pulling up a load of 3 inch hose to the third story, grabbing the hotel load, carrying it back downstairs, grabby a 185lb rescue randy (manikin) that was missing it's head and dragging it across the tower and back again, going outside, grabbing an 1 3/4 in hose, dragging it 100 ft, grabbing a 3 in and dragging it 100 ft, raising a 35ft ladder then lowering it, then hitting a Keiser (axe swing simulator) for 20 feet. Repeat until there is no air in your bottle. It. Was. Insane.
Those courses are designed to physically and mentally exhaust you, and they are successful in doing so. Not to mention I had a fire shift last night where I had to go out at 3:00am to be an awesome firefighter with no sleep. So, pretty much, I did the stamina test on 3 hours of sleep. I am so flippin' tired!!
So a Happy Valentine's Day to David and I... I got home at 6:15 this morning and left again for training an hour later. But when I got home there was a rose made out of duct tape on the table and some chocolates that said "I (Heart) You! EAT CHOCOLATE!" Kind of cute.
If I wasn't so insanely exhausted I would have stopped at the store and grabbed him something. But I suck.
I've been in an awesome Metallica mood lately, I'd really like to learn to play a banjo version of their Turn The Page. I bet it would sound wicked.
Well, I'm going to wash the dirt and sweat from me and pass out in bed with a comic book.
-Jess

Thank god he didn't go to Jared...

2009-02-06T00:35:00.001-08:00

So, I'm engaged.
Isn't that neat?
Otherwise life is continuing on as usual. Mom has started to grill me for wedding details and try to take over my plans, but I will not be foiled! I WILL have swords in my wedding! I WILL have a disaster scene on my cake! and I WILL walk down the aisle to 2001 a Space Odyssey!
It should be a fun wedding.
Next week my Advanced Firefighter Class starts dark and late Tuesday evening. It should be a nice learning experience for me. I think I'm going to be one of the most experienced people in that class... It's kinda cool. I'm going in with a fresh bunch who got out of basic last week and a bunch of BFF's that haven't responded much at all. I hope that my knowledge will come through a bit and I won't feel like a total idiot.
Anyway, I'm watching David make a portfolio for himself out of an old refrigerator box... It's rather amusing. Mike, Bridget, and Tracy came over tonight, we watched the third Ninja Turtles movie and played twister. It's good to see that none of us have lost our spirit.
Mike and Bridget are moving next door Saturday, unfortunately I will be at Water Rescue Training that day. Hopefully David will find it in his heart to help them move some furniture.
Well, I'm going to go read my book and start turning in for the night... I got up at 7:00 this morning to go fight a fire and have hardly sat down since! My abs hurt, my legs hurt, and I want to read my book.
-Jess

When Life Attacks!

2009-01-26T02:09:00.001-08:00

Wow, I have been sooo ridiculously busy lately!
First off, I moved into this awesome 900 square foot apartment and I got a whole bunch of fantastically cool kitchen gadgets. I love having my own space... Even though I'm kind of sharing it with David. It's a weird situation that I don't feel like explaining, so ha!
Wednesday is David and I's three year anniversary... Yipes! I'm kind of expecting a proposal, I've been being patient for long enough.
My advanced firefighter class is coming up in the next few weeks, so I'm sort of half dreading, half excited. I hate sitting in a classroom for 3 weeks at a time and adding an additional 30 hours a week to my work week and completely wiping my weekends off the map... But, not being a Basic anymore is going to be fan-frickin-tastic! I can pick up more than 2 shifts a month, not be supervised by an officer at all times, and it puts me in line for the Firefighter I class coming up in the spring. I'm psyched!
I should be getting called about an interview with the piledriver's union coming up here pretty soon. Awesome! Starting wages are $18.00 an hour, I could definitely use that these days. I could kind of go either way, see it would be really neat to get started with this job and everything would be cool... But I would also really like to work Forrestry Firefighting this summer and go to Europe in the fall. Learning all the underwater construction stuff would be totally sweet though.
We'll see how it works out, I kind of applied on a whim... so we'll see how it goes down.
This past month has been an insane month, we've had over 40 fires, and 150 calls so far in 2009, 2 of which have been fatality fires. It's kind of a rough beginning to the year, but it seems to be getting better as the weather warms up. I look forward to things improving.
I got to see one of my nieces for the first time since Christmas so that was really neat. Marina is growing so quickly! She's such a happy baby, seeing her really cheered me up the other day... I was kind of having a downer of a time, but it really helped having a grinning baby looking up at me.
Man! So much is going on right now, I'm totally going nuts! It's nice to be able to come home, lift some weights, and dance around half naked in my own apartment. . . Call me crazy, but sometimes you just need to put on ABBA and go nuts.
Until Next Time,
-Jess

Yay! New Apartment!

2009-01-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

I just moved into this awesome new place, 2 bed, 2 bath, 900 square feet... It feels soooo good to have my own kitchen!
Unfortunatly I don't have internet or anything else right now... So I'm back at the big house to use the computer. Gotta keep a working!
Well I'm off.
-Jess

An update after long last

2009-01-12T00:28:00.000-08:00

So here I sit listening to Pierce Brosnan singing ABBA and considering that I need to be up at 9:30 to go to work. That's cool...
Yesterday I got called by everyone on earth to make sure I was coming to the critical incident stress debriefing tomorrow. They are apparently quite worried about me. I have been having a hard time sleeping after this fire the other night and made the mistake of telling Warze that. He called Cap, who called me. Someone told Buckwheat, who called the chief, who called Rich, who talked to me. Someone told Joe, who called me, took me out to dinner, sat down and promptly railed me about going to the CISD. So, I'm going. I really don't want to go, but if everyone says it's in my best interest, I'm going to go for no other reason then to reassure them that I am ok.
Richard told me that one thing he's noticed about our department is, they really take care of their girls. Considering I'm the youngest girl around, everyone has a sense of duty to make sure I'm good. I'm choosing to take it as a sign that everybody doesn't hate me.

On a brighter note, David asked my Dad if he could marry me the other day. And he told me today while trying to cheer me up that he ordered the ring. Soo... glee! Now I just have to be patient and wait for the proposal.

My advanced Firefighter class is coming up soon, that should be cool. And I sent out an application to the Piledriver's Union for their apprenticeship, so I'm waiting to hear back on that. Hopefully I get into that.

Yikes I'm busy!
-Jess

Fire Fatalities

2009-01-10T18:42:00.000-08:00

Man. It's been a long couple of weeks.
We had Lt. Henderson's funeral last Friday which was really hard for me. I've never seen so many firefighters in the same place not smiling. It was really very sad.
The temperature has dropped to -30 below and colder since the first of the year and we've had 2 fatality fires. We pulled a 54 year old lady out of her log cabin the other day, she was alive when recovered but died in the burn unit in Seattle a few days later. Then we had a fire with 2 boys trapped inside, one made it, one did not.
What a week. Ugh.
-Jess

The Article From The Frontiersman:

Valley fires kill 2

By Andrew Wellner
Frontiersman
Published on Thursday, January 8, 2009 10:12 PM AKST

WASILLA �” Wasilla-area house fires have claimed two lives in three days.

The most recent came just before 11 p.m. Wednesday in a trailer home on Sylvan Road. According to an Alaska State Troopers statement, two men driving past the home spotted the fire. While one man called for help, the other went inside and helped a 12-year-old boy escape. The man received burns to his arm and hand in the process.

“We don’t advocate for people running into burning buildings, but we’re very glad that the 12-year-old was saved,” AST spokeswoman Megan Peters said.

Courtesy photo/Division of Fire and Life Safety. A fire at this mobile home on Sylvan Road late Wednesday claimed the life of a 9-year-old boy. The victim’s 12-year-old brother was saved from the blaze by two men who spotted the fire.

At that point, the flames were such that the good Samaritan couldn’t go back in. The two men left soon after firefighters and troopers arrived on scene.

Firefighters quickly located a second boy, the 9-year-old brother of the boy who made it out. The younger boy had died near the front door, troopers report. The 12-year-old was taken to an Anchorage hospital in critical condition, accompanied by his mother.

The fire destroyed the trailer home. The boys were the only people home at the time. Peters said late Thursday that troopers were still working to notify family, so the boys weren’t immediately identified.

Troopers have not yet determined a cause for the fire, but investigators are looking into it, Peters said. Meanwhile, troopers are conducting interviews, but will wait until they read the fire marshal’s report before deciding how to proceed.

“Until we actually know what the cause of the fire is, you can’t really determine whether or not something is criminal,” Peters said.

Central Mat-Su Assistant Fire Chief Michael Keenan said it will likely be tough going.

“I don‘t know that we very will be able to say definitively what happened in that fire because there’s just nothing left.”

Another fatality

The first Valley fire fatality of the year came at about 6:45 p.m. Monday. Darlene Miller, 54, was found unconscious and badly burned but alive at a home on Melanie Avenue in Wasilla.

She was flown to Anchorage, then to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where she later died.

“Those were catastrophic burns,” said the borough’s director of emergency services, Dennis Brodigan.

Keenan said a passerby spotted that fire as well. His crew had to break through a locked front door to get inside. Once that was done they quickly set to work, knocking down the fire, which had burned through a portion of the first story of the log cabin-style home.

As that first crew checked the second story, Keenan said a second crew arrived and quickly found the woman, about 10 feet from where the fire started.

Keenan said investigators are still looking into a cause for the blaze. He said it appears to have started on the first floor in the living room near a bed.

“It seemed to have smoldered for quite some time,” Keenan said.

The flames were small but the heat was intense. The home had smoke detectors, he said, but it’s unclear now if they worked.

“They weren’t operating when we got there but they were melted,” he said. “Both the first floor one and the second floor one were melted and on the ground.”

Keenan said that, before this week, the most recent fire fatality he could remember came two or three years ago. Fire deaths aren’t too common in the Valley, he said, and to have two in a week has taken its toll.

The department is working to put together a debriefing for firefighters and medics working through stress and grief.

“We had quite a few newer firefighters out there who have never ever seen something like that,” Keenan said.

Big Lake Fire Chief Bill Gamble, whose crews sent mutual aid to the Wednesday’s fire, said he was told medics and firefighters on scene, especially those with children at home, had a rough night.

“There were firefighters on scene last night that were just in tears and medics that were in tears,” Gamble said Thursday.

He, too, noted that fire fatalities are a rare occurrence.

“I’ve been on probably six or seven in the 20 years that I’ve been here. But I’ve never been on one with a child,” Gamble said. “Thank god I’ve never been on one with a child.”

Keenan said he could offer little reason as to why two such fires occurred within days of each other.

One thing’s clear, though, his department has been exceedingly busy. Since the first of the year they’ve had about 30 fire calls, everything from carbon monoxide detectors to smoke alarms to actual structure fires.

Some of that, he said, comes from the cold weather.

“Everybody’s using their heaters a lot more and they’re stoking up their heaters and their fireplaces a lot more,” Keenan said.

He had two pieces of advice: First, people should make sure their chimneys are clean and their wood as dry as possible. Second, they should make sure they have working smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.

“That’s what’s going to give them that warning,” he said.

Mike and Bridget's Wedding Pictures

2008-12-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

Just remembered I had these from Mike and Bridget's wedding. I kind of just wanted to show off how smoking hot my boyfriend is in a tux.

Ow. Ow. I'm the man in the box.

2008-12-30T00:27:00.000-08:00

As I sit here jammin' to Alice In Chains' Man in the Box, I am quite content to think over future plans.
Tomorrow, I am taking Smudge, my cat, in to get declawed because he is destroying the carpet and our new couch. I feel the time has come, and perhaps, is slightly overdue.
Today I acquired a heavy bag for boxing and a speed bag, so that's exciting. I did some boxing with my boyfriend's mom, and she has like zero strategy behind it and it's frustrating. I tend to want to take my time and pick my shots and she's kind of more, put the fists in the face and let things fly. Haha, we'll see how that goes in the end. Once I get over not wanting to be hit in the face, I'm sure I'll be fine and be able to land a few.
Now all I need is a stand for my heavy bag and I'll be in business. Sports Authority is having a huge sale, so I just need a time when I can get in to Anchorage. Which won't be tomorrow or the next day. Whatever.
I suppose it's time to start thinking about plans for this next year... I think I'll be getting engaged fairly soon, so that's exciting. We've been thinking Summer 2010. As Stephen put it... We're not engaged, but we're making wedding plans... Therefore we're engaged? Meh, he's British. What does he know?
Anyway, I got David the Troll Warship Lego set today because he's been wanting it and it was on sale. So that boy should be thoroughly occupied with his lego sets for a while. His mom got him a lego chess set for Christmas which is really cool. Stephen kicked my ass in it last night.
Speaking of Stephen, David's sister, Jamie, and her husband, Stephen, are up from Oregon. It's been interesting. I've been having a good time, though. I'm not quite as ridiculously shy around them anymore. Of course, that could be closely linked to my state of extreme tipsiness the other night at David's Dad's house. We went for dinner and Diane gave me some wine. It was kind of downhill from there.
In any case. I guess my main thoughts are that I'm getting married soon. That's weird. Like a year and a half from now. . . I'll be 20. That feels good. Ok.
-Jess

A Reasonably Merry Christmas

2008-12-26T17:57:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough few days, with Lt. Henderson dying and structure fires up the wazoo... When I wasn't dwelling on fire department stuff, I was having a really good Christmas.
After I got home from Duty Crew, I got sent to a fire not half an hour after climbing in bed, so I was out until about 10:00am. Collectively I got about 3 hours of sleep last night, I'm a little dead. Anyway, David and I headed into Eagle River for Christmas with the family. Halfway through our Christmas with the Rogers', I got the call about Chris dying. I had to call a few people and then I kind of struggled through the rest of Christmas. I got some really nice things though, Christine gave me a scrap booking set to organize my road trip pictures, and Mom and Dad got me some gift cards and knives. Afterwards we headed to Kali's where I got an REI gift card... So that was nice.
We headed back home and had Christmas later that evening after I sat down with David's mom, who is also a firefighter, and dealt with some of the stuff going on.
I got a call midway through the evening, so I responded to 5-2, it was really good to see some of the guys. We took Chris' helmet and name tag and put them up in the office. We're going to do something for his boys every Christmas now.
Well, I'm going to go now.
-Jess

Rest in Peace Lieutenant Chris Henderson

2008-12-26T17:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year was saddened by the death of our Lieutenant at Station 5-2, Chris Henderson. He died in his bed Christmas morning and EMS was called at 10:00 while CPR was in progress. Cause of death is currently unknown, but believed to be cardiac arrest. He's leaving behind two little kids.
We're all really beat up about this, he was a young guy and we're having a hard time believing cardiac arrest, but stranger things have happened. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Tonight we're having a station meeting so we can be with each other.
Keep him in your prayers.
-Jess

She's a restless spirit on an endless night...

2008-12-21T20:20:00.000-08:00

Boxing lessons are going quite well as of late. I'm steadily learning the proper punching method and since I gave Richard a bloody nose in our last match, I feel like I'm developing skills.
This week I was kind of a lump. I had a busy Duty Crew night on Thursday, we had a few rescue calls and a lot of chores. So after filling up a hot tub for one of our officers and thoroughly cleaning out Engine, Rescue, and Tanker 6-1-1, we headed to bed around 1:00 am. It was a long night.
Friday turned out to be about as long, after work I headed to training, and then off to bed around 2:00. Then Saturday I had Duty Crew at 5-2 at 8:00 am. After our station Christmas party and chinese gift exchange, I headed back home to play Rock Band 2 with David and Mike. It was a fun evening. Sofia came over and we got pizza and sat down and watched the Dark Knight because she hadn't seen it.
After and evening of excellence I went to sleep and slept until 1:00 today. David and I went to Wal-Mart, finishing up our christmas shopping and getting some groceries.
So today I have accomplished squat and I'm tired again.
Tuesday was the Department Christmas Party. It was really fun, there was food and Santa came by for the kids. It was a nice evening.
Things have been a little weird. I always get grumpy during the holidays, so I am just dealing with my annoyance at the moment. I need to do something and stop eating so much junk. Meh.
Well, I'm off, gotta find something worthwhile to do with my time.
-Jess