Lazy days at the fire house...

[SHED376]

Here I sit in a big old fire house scanning through firehouse.com. I am so bored an alarm malfuntion sounds fun! What kind of things do you guys do to pass the time? It's Sat., so the morning is busy with the weekly truck deep cleaning/station cleaning, but after that we are on our own! I can only watch so much t.v.!

Also wondering what happens to your staffing in the summer months?

Here we are very short. Rigs out of service, most rigs with only 3 people, and the worst is ship outs! I have been with this dept. about 3 years now, so I am still a new guy, so in the morning, when the phone rings before roll call, I know I will be filling in somewhere else. I like getting to work with the other 85+ f.f.'s but I get tired of living out of my truck, and duffel bag. Just wondering if there are others like me?

Bored to tears (which, really is a good thing) and waiting for you to amuse me... Shed

[codeblue81]

Well around here our Vollie House only runs about 50-60 runs a years and the ambulance might be lucky enough for 120. Here lately since the wife has left I've been spending alot more time at the Firehouse just going over the units and hanging out with the guys. Us younger guys have been doing some freelance SCBA and pump training. Not much to do in a town of 750.

code_blue81

[RyanEMVFD]

there's training to be done along with reading if material is present. i would like for our station to get a portable basketball goal to just excerise with. just a few suggestions. beyond that not much but enjoy the peace and quiet.

[E229Lt]

" Study hard, don't be a flop, sooner or later, you'll get too the top."

[19Eagle93]

During our down-time I will pick a subject to refresh my skills or try and learn a new skill. If I'm not doing that I'm down in the gym. In this profession it is important to exercise the mind and body.

[Neman13]

Here's our Day

“The Gym, Read the Paper, then Gossip” Not always in that order.

[kghemtp]

When chores are done, what about also taking time for leisure reading. Are there books you haven't gotten to read? Do you bring the newspaper to work, or is it there for everyone? How clean is the inside of your truck, and could the shop vac & armor all do it a great service? How about the grounds at the station... grass cut, trimmed, lot free of debris? Of course there are the things others have described here too. Good luck!


~Kevin
FF/Paramedic

[GrovFire25]

Well, it's the opposite here. We're a tourist town so population swells to 50K in the summer. It's still slow sometimes though. I'm in the middle of an EMT course so there's studying to do but that gets old quick. Our Chief keeps us busy with details too.
I need to get going on a weight trainig program but no one else here does it so I'm not motivated. I'm in pretty good shape though.

[ff7134]

After chores I usually hit the gym(thanks o FIREact). Then I might clean out my car. Shoot some hoops with the guys or work on my tons and tons of paperwork from the bureau and read the manuals for or many types of meters for the SHOT Team. So I don't usually sit arond till late in the evening.

[mark440]

I'm the Shift Floater too! I hate it! I've been the assigned floater for almost 4 months now. I live over an hour away from any of our fire stations. The station I'm assigned to that the Firefighter floats out of is about an hour and 15 minutes away from where I live. I have to pack my stuff up and take it home every day, just in case I get floated. Out of almost 40 shifts I've floated someplace else maybe 20 times. I like getting to the busier stations, but I don't like taking everything with me everyday, feeling like a hobo firefighter.
As far as down time goes, I do ANYTHING I can to keep busy. ANYTHING.

*Mark

[resqcapt]

SLEEP when we get the chance brothers, cause we won't be sleeping at night. Eat till you're sleepy, sleep till you're hungry! Weekends do tend to get a bit boring so after my personal vehicle is clean, workout is done, nap is taken, I catch up on my shift training responsibilities.

As far a floating; yeah, it does suck but it comes with being the new guy. We've all done it, and all the new guys from here on out will do it. It is a great opportunity to learn all the districts, apparatus, and people.


Later all,
Steve

[First In]

Eat breakfast.
Take a nap.
Wash my truck (not the firetruck).
Eat lunch.
Take another nap.
Surf the net.
Trip to the grocery store (or Taco Cabana if we don't feel like cooking).
Eat.
Clean up after ourselves.
Go to bed about 20:00 or 20:30.
You don't want to see our Sunday schedule!

[mark440]

First In, where do you find time to run calls?

Everytime I laid down yesterday to nap, we kept getting busted out. So I finally decided it would be smart to quit laying down.


*Mark

[hwoods]

Slow?? What's a slow day??

Actually, we had one a few years back..... A slow day here is one with less than 10 runs. We do get slower if the Heavy Rescue (Squad to us) is out of service, that cuts us by a third. Last year was 9,137 responses from our station. That comes out to more than one per hour. True, the Medic unit is the busiest, but everything goes every day (well, almost. The Brush rig is getting rusty with all the rain we have been getting) In what must seem like a strange operation to some, We do this with Career Staff working a 10 hour day shift (0700/1700) Weekdays, A career Medic unit 24/7, and Volunteers doing the rest. We are only 10th in runs in our county, the busiest last year was about 18,000! Apparatus is a Tower Ladder, Heavy Rescue, 2 Engines, Brush Rig, ALS Ambulance (Career EMT-Ps) BLS Ambulance (EMT-Bs, Career or Vol F/Fs, sometimes 1 of each) and several support units and Chiefs (I am currently the Asst Chief - Operations) Career Staff is 1 Capt, 1 Technician (Driver) 3 Firefighters (The daywork crew) Medics are 1 Medic and 1 Lt (both EMT-P) per shift, The balance are Volunteers, Chief, Asst Chief, Deputy Chief, 4 Captains, 2 Lts, and 65 Firefighter - EMT-Bs and 35 more volunteers in Administrative/Support services. We don't watch a lot of TV, (Never miss a NASCAR race) but we do train a couple of hours almost daily. I do have to ask those of you who are not that busy, Why not?? what are you doing different, such as not doing EMS, not doing "customer service" things like flooded basements, not doing Rescue? Why not? We went out over the years and looked for things to do to get busier. I think we succeded at that. Stay Safe....

[LadyCapn]

I agree hwoods, there are lots of things they could be doing to keep busy. Some of the things you mentioned are ways, but not one person here has mentioned PREVENTION. Why aren't you out doing basic inspections? Why aren't you doing Public Education whenever you get a chance? Come work for me and on a beautiful Saturday afternoon we'll be targeting high risk neighbourhoods, parking the truck and walking around meeting and educating people. How much can you accomplish in two hours?