When you think of a group of people that helps the community and keeps us safe, most people think of police officers. While that's completely true, there's another group that doesn't get nearly enough credit for all they to do help out community: the firefighters.
When you think of a firefighter, you think of a person that wears an all-encompassing uniform and fire helmet, all to protect them from the extreme heat that a fire gives off. But what many don't realize is that a firefighter's uniform can weigh up to 60 pounds. That's like carrying an eight-year-old kid on your back. Firefighters need to go through training to not only learn what to do in emergency situations, but also to build the strength to carry all that equipment while assisting others at the same time.
Firefighters have more in their job description than most people realize. Their work hours can be extremely long. Firefighters can work anywhere from 10-12 hour shifts three or four days in a row, or they can work 24 hours straight with 48 hours off directly after. And while most people generalize firefighters as the people who save others from burning buildings, that's not the only thing they do. They provide emergency medical service, carry out search and rescue missions, provide disaster assistance and respond to hazard material situations as well.
For example, firefighters often stabilize people who need medical services until an ambulance shows up. They show up to the scene to help when trains derail. When people get lost or go missing, they're part of the team that shows up to find them. Those are just a few different services that firefighters provide for the community. We often think of them as just fighting fire (which is profound and dangerous on its own), but they do much more than that. They keep our community safe and help us pick up the pieces when things aren't going as planned.
Something else that most people don't know about firefighters is that 73 percent of them are volunteers. They donate their time to help others while risking their own lives. They're there for the worst day of peoples' lives, and many do it voluntarily. If that's not heroic, I don't know what is.
So instead of complaining about the noise next time you hear a siren, think about how that truck full of firefighters is heading off to do one of many tasks that they do on a daily basis to help their community.
