Some Thoughts on First Responders and the LA Fires From A Former Firefighter.
Just a few things you might not know or have thought about.
We all have our eyes and brains and hearts glued to the news and social media posts about the fires in LA. We see photos of firefighters holding a hose flowing water into a building that is ablaze, we see reports of staggering numbers of firefighters on the fire lines. We see videos of fire engines pulling out of their stations from local municipal fire departments, heading to Los Angeles. We see and hear what the news and media tell us. When I, along with any other first responder, watch all these pieces of information, we know so much more. I thought I’d write to give you all some information as many folks don’t know what we do and what goes on behind the scenes.
First and most dear to my heart, are ALL the first responders. The firefighters are getting SO much love, and deservedly so. But I want you all to know what the other first responders are doing so you can give them some love too.
The police. I could write up 167 Substacks on how the police are misinterpreted and vilified but I will save that for later. Right now, the police in LA are absolute heroes. They are the biggest heroes as far as I am concerned. The firefighters are brave and exhausted but this is what they do. This is what they train for. They work in teams of 4 firefighters within a large team of 20-plus firefighters. They always have someone right next to them. They have the proper equipment and training, and everything they are and carry is designed to be in the middle of a fire. They drive around in large vehicles carrying several hundred gallons of water. The police? They are alone. They are by themselves—in a car. They wear a regular wool uniform and that’s it. No fire protective gear, no helmet nothing to protect them. I joke with my cop friends how I don’t know how they do what they do - no way I’m running into a gunfight or chasing down and wrestling with someone who just killed someone else and/or is on some crazed drug, and has nothing to lose. And they say the same back to me, no way you’d catch me running into something that is on fire. Well, right now, the cops in Los Angeles ARE running into the fire and standing in the fire in their short-sleeved shirts. And most likely they are getting yelled at because they won’t let a desperate person back into their neighborhood because that neighborhood is on fire. Fire is not in their comfort zone. Fire is the firefighter’s comfort zone. The firefighters are trained in fire behavior and know when to leave and when to stay and don’t make decisions alone. When do cops have time and funding to learn fire behavior when they are trying to learn and train on all they need to know and be ready for? When you watch videos and see the photos - I urge you to look at the differences between the cops and firefighters.
The next first responders I’d like to talk about are the dispatchers. They sit in a room and listen to 911 callers scream and cry and beg in utter despair…and they can’t do anything about it except send the info to someone else and hope the help gets there in time. They are supposed to know where every piece of emergency equipment is. The last report I read stated there are 1,354 fire engines in LA. Guess who keeps track of them? I imagine since the fires have started none of the dispatchers have been able to go home. They are being bombarded for days and days. I really cannot think of anything more overwhelming than being in a dispatch center during a catastrophic event. Plus, I have talked to many dispatchers and they say they posses an astounding sense of personal responsibility that every cop, firefighter, paramedic, and EMT goes home safe.
Here are some other things you may not think about when watching these fires burn in LA. On a plain old regular day, the LA County Fire, LA City Fire, the LA Police Department, and the LA Sheriffs run thousands of calls a day and those calls don’t stop because of the fires. Firefighters and fire engines are still needed to staff those stations and respond to those calls. Other departments that send engines and firefighters to LA, still need to staff their stations and engines back home. So even if you are a firefighter who hasn’t been sent to LA, your regular 48-hour shift is turned into a 72, 96, 120, or more-hour shift. For spouses of these firefighters, their 48-hour single-parent shift is also being turned into a 120 or more-hour shift. The same exact thing goes for the cops, dispatchers, and medics. (If you are a spouse or family of a first responder I urge you to check out Dear Chiefs Podcast on Instagram.)
I promise I am not trying to make you feel sorry for us. This is what we do and just about every firefighter in the United States wants to be at the LA fire. I am retired and I want to be there. I should be there. I called a good friend of mine who is a badass battalion chief and spent many many years fighting big wildland fires. We asked each other how the other is doing (she is another PTSD survivor, so instead of isolating and stewing in our crap, we call each other and talk about stuff!) and I told her, “I just want to be there. And I feel dumb that while all this destruction is going on, I just want to be there. I think it’s about how much I hate feeling helpless. Plus, you know how it is, who wants to miss out on a huge fire?” She answered, “No you don’t. No one wants to be there anymore. Politics has ruined it. If you get caught laughing or throwing a football in base camp you get shut down pretty fast. It’s all about the optics now.” It’s like they are supposed to look devastated which will in turn make them feel devastated. That feeling usually doesn’t come until after everything is over and we get back to the normal routine of life. Having it come in the middle of the incident will just make everything so much worse.
I have learned from going through PTSD, that for my entire career, I based my value on being a firefighter. So many of us do. There is nothing worse than having someone ask, “Where you THERE?” and having to say no. So to all of you staffing stations back home or in Los Angeles and not in the fire, YOU MATTER. To all the cops and dispatchers and paramedics out there, THANK YOU for giving a piece of your soul to thousands of people you don’t know and keeping them and the rest of us safe.
And please, I beg you, someone make some signs thanking the police and the dispatchers.
And signs for the EMTs & medics, too!! 🙏🏼
Really important. I'm linking this to my FB page.