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By Bill Chadwick
NOR'EASTER Online - October 2005

It was pre-ordained that I would be a Volunteer Fire Fighter. Some of my earliest little boy memories have to do with my father’s and uncle’s membership in the Swansea Fire Dept. Like my dad sitting at the kitchen table his face a huge grin under his flat top hair cut as I struggled around the kitchen floor wearing his fire hip boots, I had to walk strait legged as rolled down they reached my hips. 

 Later on, after many assurances to him I would follow instructions and stay out of the way I was allowed to ride to fires with my dad during summer vacations. One thing I learned fast was he was not going to wait for me, so I developed my own quick response system when an alarm was sounded. Many times I would race across the drive way in my skivvies with my sneakers, shirt and pants under my arm. By the time I put the magnetic gumball light on the roof and started the car, there he was fully dressed and off we would go with me getting dressed in the passenger seat. 

My first experience with death came on one of these calls in the middle of the night. As we zoomed down Hortonville Rd. at about seventy Kay Eddy came on the air to give Truck 1 the location and some information. (We did not start calling them Engines in Swansea until about five years ago when we got our first ladder truck). Kay the chief’s wife and the department’s dispatcher said “truck 1 respond to a housefire on Marvel St. I have a report of people still in the building.” We quickly doubled back on Hails Hill Rd. knowing the truck was on the way. As we topped a hill on a curve there was a bright glow in the air about two miles away. My father said mostly to himself but also I think to prepare me for the reality of fire fighting “if there is anyone still in that house they are cooked”.  This was to be my baptism that the fun of drilling and squirting water on brush fires had another side and this work was also deadly serious. Unfortunately his observation was all too true. As we jogged in from the street it was a surreal scene. The front of the house was intact with heavy smoke pushing out of the second floor eves and there was a huge orange glow illuminating the tall trees in the back yard. (I latter saw that flames had vented out all the first floor rear windows and the rear wall of the house was almost completely consumed. Truck #1 rolled in laying its own 3” supply line from the hydrant. My father an officer at the time and John Borden the Deputy Chief were told to attack the seat of the fire. I was told where to stand out of the way out front. Chief Eddy at the same time called on other men to get ladders up to both available second floor windows to try to rescue the people now known to be inside. I remember the guys on the ladder having a tough time getting in even though that had those “new” Scott Air Pak “gas masks.” I now know that the super heated gasses in the second floor had to be allowed to vent through the top of the windows they broke before they could crawl in the bottom under the heat. The main body of fire was quickly knocked down, probably in less than five minutes from the time the trucks wheels stopped turning. A 2 ½ inch hand line putting out 240 gallons per minute at 100 PSI in the hands of determined firefighters who are willing to get in real close can put out a tremendous amount of fire. It seemed like forever to me, but was probably but just another five minutes I saw a fireman from Station 2 struggling to carry a big strapping young man across the garage roof to a ladder. Later after all  victims where laid out in the drive way and “pronounced” it took me a while to figure out that this was not a black family, the smoke and heat made them look like that. This was a lot of years ago, I think I was around twelve or thirteen at the time; but it was on this night that I learned what death and grief are. 

The father of this family woke up to the crackling of the flames down stairs and choking smoke; he knew there was no way to get down stairs to the phone.  He shook his wife hard told her the house is on fire and to get the kids out on the attached one story garage roof, then he took off using that route to jump down and run next door to call the fire dept. Apparently the smoke had already gotten to her as no one else made it out, the agony of his loss was a tough thing to see and hear!

The Swansea Fire Dept is I believe the largest volunteer department in the Commonwealth. There are very few departments like ours left, as we are truly volunteer. That is we receive no payment whatsoever from the town. There are many fire departments with various combinations of full time – paid/ on call and or fulltime - volunteer but departments where all rank and file members are unpaid are a pretty rare breed. Only our full time chief, the fire inspector and our dispatchers get pay checks. All of the approximately one hundred and twenty five fire fighters and elected company officers do their duties as a civic duty and for the enjoyment doing that duty gives. We have four fire stations spread around town, housing our front line equipment which includes; four front line pumping engines, one 100 ft. ladder truck with it’s own pump, 4’ supply hose and 1000 gallon per minute deluge gun hard piped at the ladder tip, a combination Bush Breaker / 1000 gal. Tanker for the rural areas and a first class Heavy Rescue truck equipped with the Jaws of Life, cascade air supply, 12Kw generator and more lifting and winching equipment than I have space to list. Unfortunately this Heavy Rescue unit is the one of the busiest in Bristol County, with a major shopping mall and I-195 passing through town we have lead the county in “extrications” for over two decades.

I was very lucky when I came onto the fire dept. It was a less formal time and new members were given on the job training. I started working at brush fires as soon as I was big enough to carry a five gallon “Indian Can” on my back. At first I would follow an older member as he “knocked down” the fire my job was to follow up and make sure there were no re-kindles behind him. Soon I was allowed to roll and re-pack hose after “real fires.” By the time I was sixteen I had boots, coat and helmet and was allowed to do more like pulling hose, helping hooking up to the hydrant and shacking equipment from the truck but staying outside. 

My first experience inside a house fire came around this time. We had had a good working fire in the basement of a two story one family. As we started to pick up I went for a peek inside as I was now allowed to do. I could see the pull down ladder to the attic from the bottom the stairs on the first floor. I could see some smoke rolling out of the attic-way, a strange site at this stage of the fire. So I popped up the stairs and ladder and took a peek. WOW at the far end of the attic flames were licking around the chimney about eighteen inches high. I boogied back down out front and found the chief, Rut Eddy. “Chief there are flames showing in the attic” I reported.  He stared into my eyes for a second then bent down and picked up a booster hose line and asked the pump operator if the line was charged, “Yup Chief”. He then thrust the nozzle into my hands and said “let go young Chadwick” I made as many mistakes as I did right attacking the small fire in that attic. I learned about staying on the rafters, staying low, and getting close to the seat of the fire before hitting it with water. Believe me it is much better to let the heat, steam and smoke mushroom over your head than taking it in the puss!  One things about lesions learned like this, you never forget them. 

Naturally times have changed and our Fire Dept has had to change with them. Now the Swansea Fire Dept is accredited by the Massachusetts Fire Academy to teach the Firefighter 1 and Firefighter 2 courses.  Probationary members must be eighteen years old complete the two hundred hours of training and pass the examinations before the can do any serious work at actual incidents. This is really a good thing. The improvement in building codes, construction and alarm systems has greatly reduced the number of serious fires.  The realistic schooling, live fire exercises maze and confined space drills gives the trainees a lot of experience. This experience before actual incidents is important as the environments we do meet in fires today are much more hazardous than when I started. The synthetic materials used in today’s homes give off much more poisonous gases and flammable particulates as products of combustion. 

One challenge facing modern firefighters is that are equipment almost protects us too well. The turnout gear I’m modeling is the latest high tech combination of Kevlar and Nomex. In the old day we did not tend to get as far into a “non survivable” environment. Our gear was lighter and we tended to have some exposed skin near our ears. As we crawled into a fire we would sense sooner that we were under a layer of super heated gases. Now the basic suite we wear – helmet, coat, hood, bucker pants, boots, flashlight and 100’ of safety line – weights forty-five pounds. It insulates us so well from the environment that we can get too far into the dangerous environment before there is enough ventilation for effective fire attack. Learning to recognize these hazardous conditions is now part of our training. We train in the Mass Fire Academy’s mobile “flash over” training trailer. This is as exciting as the esses at Watkins Glen at 125 MPH believe me! In this trailer you lay flat on your belly while the trainers create an environment where eighteen inches over your head is a mass 1400+ degree smoke that then FLASHES OVER YOU after they teach you the warning signs that it is coming.

While this turnout gear does a fantastic job of protecting us: it also is great at holding in the heat our bodies give off from the extreme exertion of firefighting. Heat stress, hydration and having fire fighters in good enough condition to complete a full evolution are a major concern. Let’s finish the picture of what is the standard load for a firefighter of today. Using myself as an example, I’m 6 foot and weight 225 lbs, add basic turnout gear 45 lbs. a Scott Air-Pac 22 lbs. and finally Halligan bar at 14 lbs to do some work with. Ok the alarm sounds at 2 AM; I have jump out of bed thrown on some cloths and socks, sprint to my truck, driven to the fire station and put on my turn out gear. On the way to the scene I don my Scott Air-Pac and now I come off the truck with my hand tool weighing 306 lbs and it is time to start working.

At the fire I put on my Scott at the Engine and fast walked fifty yards and report to the chief. He told me we needed a power saw to open the roof. I jogged back got the saw and jogged to the ladder. Then put on my mask climbed the two ladders cut the hole and used an ax to pry up the roofing I had cut. By the time I got back to the ground I had to take off my turnout coat, sit down for ten minutes and drink some water. I felt just like I did after driving an hour and a half enduro race!

While on the subject of stress and conditioning, I recently started a conditioning program with NER member Peter Donohoe. After a month of working with him I can really feel the difference, I can perform and am enjoying firefighting activities much better. I’m looking forward to seeing what this program does for me during the enduro races! Pete is a true fitness professional and his Focus Fitness facility in Boston is first class. His evaluation of what I needed to do and the great variety of interesting routines he has been giving me to get there have been spot on. 

I hope you found this information and reminiscing about our fire dept. interesting. In closing; I was amazed to watch someone from costal Mississippi on CNN standing in front of their INTACT home two days after the storm complaining the had no food or water and bitching that no one had brought them these essentials. 

Here is a quick category 3 or more storm list from a guy who lives one half miles from Mt. Hope Bay more than 12 feet above mean high tide: 2 D cell flash lights, battery radio, Colman lantern, fuel and mantels, regular food supply in refrigerator/freezer 5KW gen. set plus 30 gals fuel, canned food for a week, (yup I can last 12 days!!) full propane tanks for the grill, ply wood and sheet rock screws for picture windows, (board up Mom’s place move her in!!) sharp chain saws with fuel, bar oil and spare chains, fill tub and large pots full of water, US Marine Corp filtering pump for when I run out, full fuel tanks in the Pick-up truck, 12GA pump action shotgun and 50 rounds of #1 buck shot.

A favorite farewell firefighter’s use: “See Ya at the big one.”