Andrew Carey spent 24 hours with Limerick Fire and Rescue and got up close and personal with the work of some of Limerick’s bravest.
IT SEEMS a simple enough concept. Keeping your head when everyone else is losing theirs. But it goes a long way towards explaining the mindset of a firefighter.
Early starts and late finishes or late starts and early finishes. That’s the normal routine for any shift worker in any job.
But for the men and women of the fire service, there is an inherent danger to the working conditions and it’s one that the general public know little of.
Everything from blazing fires to freezing waters can be common course in an ordinary day’s work for the members of the Fire and Rescue Service.
Forget the perceptions created by television and movie producers because this is no celluloid creation. It’s real life and something that can only be appreciated at the frontline of human endeavour.
Children all over the world want to grow up to be a pilot, an astronaut, a sports star, a nurse and, of course, a firefighter.
But what makes these men and women want to run in to a blazing building while all around them are running out?
Passing all the tests is the first challenge after you’ve asked yourself the hard questions about your suitability in becoming a member of the fire and rescue service.
Senior assistant chief fire officer Scott Keenan said that the first thing many candidates say in interview is that they have always dreamed of becoming a fireman – but it is not as easy as just dreaming it. You have to be cut out for this life – often described as hard, but very rewarding.
Just looking at the criteria to join can give a sense of what candidates are signing up for.
At the last round of recruitment, around 500 applications were received for a handful of positions and whittling that number down to the ten recruits needed involves a five-phase process entailing a self assessment questionnaire, rigorous fitness test, psychometric tests, work related tests and all of that before an interview.
Tiring stuff, but this is no place for lolling in the corner and watching the clock tick down your tour of duty.
Of the 12 men and women on a watch, the commonality in their approach to the demands of the job is what sets them aside. Living alongside your fellow fire fighters can be as arduous as it is rewarding – but the same could be said for living with your family. And that’s how a group watch works – along with all the pros and cons that go with station life.
Helping people at their lowest point in life is what they’re trained for and where they are at their best.
Speaking to the members of Group 4 or Red Watch over a cup of tea in the canteen, more commonly referred to as “the sanctuary”, this extraordinary sense of common purpose becomes apparent.
“Without sounding cheesy, it’s the reward we get from helping people when they’re really in need is where we get satisfaction from this job”, one of the team explains.
“You try to bring some good to them and show that there is light at the end of the tunnel. This can be the worst thing that can happen to someone and we are trained to go in and help where we can. It’s often been said that when there is no one else to call, call the fire brigade – it kind of shows what we are about.”
During the 24 hours shifts which were spread over two days and nights, Limerick City Fire and Rescue were tasked to a number of call-outs and none more serious than the large-scale commercial fire at the Furniture Man store in Dromkeen.
The building was ablaze and the stock contents were in peril and eventually lost to what was one of the biggest fires of recent times.
Hours of battling, containing and eventually dampening down the fire faced eight crews from city and county.
But that was not without trying to first save the building.
While life and limb may not have been at risk, emotions ran high and eventually all the owners could do was watch as the flames took hold of their years of work in the early hours of a Sunday morning where the only light came from the flashing fire trucks and the blaze in front of them.
Desolate, one man sat at the kerb with his head in his hands.
The firefighters were busy running hoses, hoisting platforms and throwing thousands of litres of water on the flames, but he just could not look.
One firefighter stepped back, took off his gloves and gave the distraught onlooker a bottle of mineral water before putting his hand on his shoulder in a simple gesture of empathy and support.
Although it wouldn’t alter what was happening in front of him, it lifted the weight of the world for a brief moment.
A few words of consolation, a brief smile and a nod concluded the interaction before the fireman resumed duties.
It may not have doused the flames but it stemmed the tears and illustrated some of the human characteristics needed to be a fireman.
24 hours with Red Watch doesn’t make you an expert in firefighting or group analysis, but it does give you a taste of what it means to be a fireman in Limerick.
On the flip side, the service has been subject to some anti-social activity and often find themselves as targets for something more than verbal abuse.
While reports of such happenings are dwindling, there is no room for complacency.
Neither is there room for sanctimony when the fire and rescue service is called to the banks of the Shannon to help those for whom the pressures of life have become too overwhelming.
From the time of receiving the call, through to being on the river in their specially designed rib, three swiftwater rescue technicians or swimmers (SRT) can be on scene within five minutes.
It’s a thin margin between life and death and it’s in that short timeframe that the real benefits of the tough selection process and years of training are put to best effect.
Here is a gallery of images from the weekend and below are a series of questions to ask yourself if you want to become a fire fighter as well as a timetable of events.
The Timetable of events
Friday
8:30am – Joined the crew and met with Asst Senior Fire Chief Scott Keenan for induction and kit out.
9:30am – Meet the group for road traffic accident simulation training where the roof was removed from a car to show how access would be gained for a trapped driver or passenger. A dash roll maneouvre was also demonstrated whereby several precision cuts are made and expansion equipment used to raise the front of the car off the driver’s legs.
11am – A visit to the sanctuary where the troubles of the world are sorted out. In other words, we drink tea in the canteen.
11.30am – More training involving rope work and abseiling with ladder climbing as the group practices new techniques for accessing heights.
1.30pm – Lunch in the sanctuary was interrupted by a call to attend a car fire near Gooig.
3.10pm – Unit despatched to the Abbey River where a dog left its owner and had jumped into the water. The dog was rescued after it became stranded below the high quay walls.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent on additional training and appliance familiarisation.
6.30pm – Shift ends
6.32pm – new shift tasked to a river rescue on the Shannon with a successful outcome after a woman entered the water.
Saturday
6.30pm – Shift begins with reconnaissance around the Abbey River, Kings Island and back to the city via Browns Quay in Thomondgate.
Meantime crews were dispatched to farmlands outside the city where youths set fire to haystacks.
10.30pm – Tasked to an automatic fire alarm activation at a commercial premises in the suburbs – proved to be vandals gaining access to the premises.
11.30pm – Dispatched to a city housing estate where items of furniture were on fire at the front of a house.
3.30am – Sent to the large commercial fire at Dromkeen where eight crews battled the blaze for up to five hours.
7.15am – Tasked to leave Dromkeen to attend at a single vehicle road traffic accident on the outskirts of the city – driver suffered minor injuries but was taken to hospital as a precaution.
8.30am – Returned to the station and cooked a well deserved breakfast for all the firefighters of red watch after a long night.
9.30am – New shift starts.
Have you got what it takes?
Ask yourself these questions to see if you are cut out to be a fireman?
Are you able to meet the demands of working in disciplined service?
Can you take orders from other people?
Can you accept the need to keep to rules that tell you what you can and cannot wear and the standard of appearance you must maintain (e.g. how you should wear your hair?)
Can you get on with people from different backgrounds and cultures?
Do you have the emotional strength to deal with a road traffic accident or other instances where there may be severe injuries or loss of life?
Can you work as part of a close knit team?
Can you work under pressure without letting the rest of your team down?
Do you have the sensitivity to deal with members of the public when they are distressed, confused or being obstructive?
Can you take the responsibility for representing the Fire Service both when you are at work and when you are not at work?
Are you committed to maintaining and developing your skills?
Are you prepared to study on top of your normal working day?
Are you free from symptoms of aquaphobia, claustrophobia or vertigo?
Is regular exercise a part of your everyday life?
Are you committed to maintaining your health and physical fitness?
Are you prepared to work day and night shifts, evenings, weekends, public holidays?
Are you a practical person who likes to work with their hands and with equipment?
Do you enjoy making things or finding out how things work?
Are you someone who can always be relied on to be somewhere on time?
Are you someone who others see as dependable?
Are you prepared to work outside in all types of weather, even if you are wet and cold and you don’t know when a job might finish?
Are you someone who can cope with routine, knowing that you may have to do the same things at the same time on most days, with the frustration of sudden interruptions to your routines?
If you answered yes to all of those questions and can back them up with evidence, congratulations, you have successfully passed phase one of the recruitment process but there is a long road ahead and one that is paved with situations that will test your character and above all your ability to become one of Limerick’s bravest.
In the aftermath of the fire at Dromkeen, Andrew spoke to Limerick’s Live 95 Fm’s Joe Nash about the events of that weekend – here’s the audio in two parts.
Part 1
Part 2
