I was working for the sheriff's office back them, and got stuck dispatching once in a while. I was covering a dispatch shift at the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office on Christmas one year, The fire department was having it's yearly Christmas party.
It was a small county not much going on , and I was board. So I decided to wish the firefighters a Merry Christmas. I punched up fire frequency on my console and hit the fire tones, after a pause I said Merry Christmas from the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office.
The phone range about a minute later, when they were done saying not nice words, they told me when all 40 pagers went off, their hearts all skipped a beat. They knew at that point nobody could drive a fire truck.
Another time I dispatched the fire department to a barn fire about 5 miles north of town. We could see the smoke from the sheriff's office and as soon as the fire rig turned north they advised dispatch to start tankers.
As soon as the first rig turned in the driveway, they advised dispatch to cancel the tankers and bring beer. The barn was a total loss and they let it burn. In big cities like Spokane nothing like that went on at fire stations, but they were a paid full time fire department. Drinking was for off duty.
The reason these volunteer fire departments did one hell of a job for over 100 years, was they weren't just fire fighters, they were the community. They trained together, they fought fires and they risk their lives so many times together, and not for one dime in pay.
Times have changed and drinking in the fire house is no longer done, one main reason was somebody had to drive those fire trucks from the barn fire back to the station.
But preventing volunteers in any position especially hard to come by EMS and firefighter personal from using a lawful product on their off duty time, is going to far. Having a drug free workplace is one thing, but telling volunteers they can't have a beer at a family picnic isn't American, and I can think of nothing more American than a volunteer firefighter.
I don't agree with reno's policy, but with a breathalyzer less than $50 on eBay, there's no reason for any volunteer to respond with anything over zero for blood alcohol. A beer or two Friday night shouldn't keep a volunteer with a zero blood alcohol on Saturday afternoon from responding to save your life. There are times as a police officer or firefighter when you just need to let off some steam from what you saw that shift.
Lost Tradition
We've lost a lot of traditions like the pole firefighters would slid down from the sleeping area to the fire trucks. I got to slide down one of the poles at Station One in Spokane. We figured out sleepy firefighters shouldn't slide down brass poles from the second story in the middle of the night, some weren't awake.
Lost Tradition
I see no firefighters ride the tail board of the fire truck any longer. That was fun, the truck would stop at the fire hydrant and a firefighter would grab two 2 1/2" hoses and wrap them around the hydrant, then signal the fire truck to take off laying hose as it went.
The firefighter at the hydrant would hook up the hoses and standby for the signal to turn on the hydrant when the engineer had them hooked to the pump.
The volunteer fire department was the community in many small towns, but we've made it so difficult for someone to volunteer, they say why.
Reno policy allows up to .08 BAC for firefighters
www.rgj.com/story/news/2014/06/22/reno-policy-allows-bac-firefighters/11178803
