Working: firefighters

By HANNAH NAUGHTON
UNLEASHED STAFF
Your heart beats like a drum, growing louder and louder.
Sweat cascades down your face. Chapstick can’t save the Sahara Desert you call your lips, and it feels like nothing can quench your thirst. Your tongue feels swollen and your sandpapered throat stings. Your eyes burn like the building in front of you.
Orange flames entangle every corner, twisting, curling, screaming. They lick the sides of the windows and walls, devouring everything in sight.

You’re about to walk into this monster, right into its jaws. David vs. Goliath just doesn’t seem right; it’s more like man vs. big, huge, scary, hot, burning building that could collapse any second and eat you in one bite.
The David of this story is a firefighter.
The job title pretty much describes the work: fighting fires.
But it entails much more than that. Lifesaver, for example. First responder. Educator.
Whether it’s rescuing a woman from a two-story burning apartment, or teaching second-graders to stop, drop and roll, firefighters save lives.
These men and women respond to many different kinds of emergencies, including car accidents and injuries at home. In fact, most of the calls firefighters respond to are EMS, or Emergency Medical Service, calls. There are also nonemergency calls, such as having a child’s foot stuck in a toilet.
Ron Melcher, 54, has been on the job for 32 years.
“That shows how much I love my job,” he says. “Rarely do firemen get out of the service, because it’s just so rewarding.”
Melcher has served as the deputy fire marshal for the Yakima Fire Department for about three years. He oversees the department’s investigation division, public education, the reserve division, safety groups, programs within schools, media relations and more.
Of the other 29 years that he was a firefighter, he says he had many close calls where his “intuition and guardian angel” helped keep him alive.

Ryan Croffut has been on the job nine years.
“The most fun I have on the job is when I get to show up and make a difference and positively affect someone’s life,” says the 32-year-old firefighter with the Union Gap Fire Department.
Firefighting is a competitive field. Prospective firefighters attend a two-month academy, then go through a 10-month probation period.
Tony Anserello, 26, is a probationary firefighter, or “freshman,” in the Yakima Fire Department. He says he feels like he’s “under the microscope 24/7.”
“I have to prove myself, and I am evaluated,” says Anserello. “I have a notebook full of things to do, but every day is better than the last.”
From doing drills and working out to completing assignments and responding to emergency calls, beginning firefighters have a lot to do. They also have plenty of time to bond with fellow firefighters.
“Living in a firehouse is like a fraternity,” says Yakima Fire Lt. Alex Langbell. “You live with them like your family, and they’re the first guys you call up.”
Langbell, 40, has been a firefighter for 12 years. He says it doesn’t take a bookworm to become a firefighter. Instead, he says, it takes common sense and a good head on your shoulders.
For him, the most fun on the job is “riding in a firetruck going Code Three through traffic.”
“It’s something new every day,” he says. “You always get a huge adrenaline rush, like jumping from an airplane.”
Firefighters work 48-hour shifts and get paid anywhere from $4,000 to $5,500 a month.
“Unfortunately, we see death every day,” Langbell says. “But we get callused to this fact.”

—Hannah Naughton is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. She attends Davis High School.

Larry Bird, 39, left, and Tyler Quantrille, 27, practice setting up a ladder outside of Union Gap Fire Station on January 19, 2009.