St. Robert firefighter shares about volunteer program for International Firefighter’s Day
ST. ROBERT, Mo. – International Firefighter’s Day is celebrated annually on May 4th to commemorate firefighters who have risked or sacrificed their lives to protect their communities, according to the International Firefighter’s Day website.
OzarksFirst spoke to Tylor Brown, a volunteer firefighter and EMT from the City of St. Robert Fire and Rescue about his experience with the department.
Tylor Brown said that most calls the fire department responds to are fire alarm calls, carbon monoxide alarms, and medical calls, but his favorite calls to respond to are ones where he can help people in sometimes unexpected ways.
“So a couple of years ago, we went to a commercial structure fire at an apartment complex, and one of the homeowners, her son’s ashes were in an urn in the apartment. And I was able to go in and find that urn and bring it out to her. And she didn’t care about anything else in the house. She didn’t care about, you know, the property. She didn’t care that she lost her apartment or everything, for that matter. She was just concerned about the urn,” said Brown.
He said that getting to give her back her most precious possession and seeing the relief in her eyes was one of the top moments of his career.
Brown added that getting to be part of reviving someone whose heart has stopped is one of the most exhilarating experiences as a firefighter and EMT.
“No, nothing will top those; being able to get someone back after their heart stopped beating,” said Brown.
Brown said he tries to be supportive on bad days when calls don’t turn out well.
“Our department is really good about making sure if we had a rough call, our chief, he’ll talk with us. Our assistant chief will talk with us. If we need counseling or if we need to talk to someone, they do not hesitate to get us in contact with someone to talk to if we have a rough call, so they’re really good about that,” said Brown.
Brown spoke about the volunteer firefighting program in St. Robert that he is a part of.
“So we have both full-time firefighters and volunteers. If anybody in the community wants to volunteer, it’s perfectly fine,” said Brown.
He detailed the volunteer application and training process and said that volunteer firefighting can lead to a myriad of career opportunities.
“You can build your career from there. Do you wanna focus more on the medical side? You know, you can try and go through EMT school or paramedic [school]. If you want to go through the fire science, become a fire inspector, you can go, you know, focus more on inspections and stuff like that and pre-planning. If you want to be a fire investigator, you can go through and get certified as a firefighter and then go through the police academy and get certified as a police officer and go from there,” said Brown.
He said that the first step is to turn in an application to the fire department. Then, after an interview with the Fire Chief, applicants will get fingerprints and background checks before they are issued gear and put on the schedule to begin training with the rest of the fire department.
After initial training, Brown says the trainees are sent to two separate firefighting classes to become certified firefighters.
“If people are interested in joining the fire department, but they’re under the age of 18, they can also check with their local fire department. Some fire departments have a cadet program that high schoolers can join at 16 and learn about the fire service that way, too,” said Brown.
He said that firefighters are trained to evaluate the entirety of a situation before rushing in to help.
“You will never see a firefighter run on a on a fire scene. The reason being is because we have to take in so much information. We have to do what we call a 360 on a house fire or any call for that matter, you know. Because we have to see everything that we have. What’s the issue that we have going on do in the house fire, for an example. Do we have entrapment? You know, where are they at in the house… So we try to, you know, we have to gather so much information instead of just running into the burning building because, you know, one of the things we do when we get on the scene is we’re also looking at the smoke, right? Because we’re taught how to read smoke and sometimes what different colors the smoke mean. The style of the house, everything plays a factor and so you will never see us just running right away… So it may look like a lot of people are standing around… but that’s because they’re analyzing everything that they have going on so we can make the best approach possible for not only our safety, but the community safety as well.”
St. Robert Fire and Rescue Volunteer Firefighter and EMT Tylor Brown
Brown said the best way for the community to support their local fire department is to simply stop by the fire station and say hi or invite the department to community events.
“If the community wants to get involved, definitely get involved. If you guys have an event that you want the fire department to swing by. Just send them an invite if they’re not on the call or you’re not busy doing anything, they’ll be more than willing to stop by… simply just stop by and you know, talk with the crew. See, you know, the equipment, see the trucks and just you know, that’s really all. I mean, we really enjoy interacting with the community and the public.” said Brown.
He said that sometimes firefighting can be a thankless job, but knowing the community is there to support them makes all the difference.
“A lot of times we don’t hear what happens after the fact, so people just coming in and [saying] like, ‘Hey, you know, we appreciate everything you guys do. Here’s a plate of cookies.’ Or something like that. You know, we appreciate that,” said Brown.
