Firefighters’ days filled with more than emergency calls

There is more to a firefighter’s day than rushing to emergency calls.

While fighting fighters and responding to accidents and other calls for help are their primary duties, firefighters are just as busy when emergency alarms are silent.

“A lot of the perception is of a guy sitting around waiting for a call, but it’s not like that at all,” Cedar Hill Fire Protection District Chief Mick Fischer said.

A firefighter who works at one of the 17 fire service agencies in Jefferson County and Eureka typically works a 48-hour shift followed by 96 hours off.

A 48-hour shift is filled with completing training exercises, preparing to respond to emergency calls, attending public outreach events, and taking care of tax-funded equipment, vehicles, buildings and land.

“There is no shortage of things for them to do,” Rock Community Fire Protection Chief Kevin Wingbermuehle said.

At the Antonia Fire Protection District, nearly every morning starts at the kitchen table, Deputy Chief Bobby Chrisco said.

“They talk about the last shift with important notes from road construction to chief memos to what to expect if something came up yesterday and would affect the crew today,” he said. “That is usually 15 to 20 minutes.”

After the morning briefing, firefighters usually inspect the firetrucks and check their equipment to make sure they are prepared to respond to emergencies.

“It takes a couple of hours to check the trucks and the equipment to make sure everything is ready,” Saline Valley Fire Protection District Chief Bob Dunn said.

After firefighters are confident, they are ready to respond to calls, they may attend public relations events, such as going to schools to discuss fire safety and emergency preparedness.

“That’s a big part of our daily duties, especially during fire prevention week (which was held from Oct. 6-12),” Fischer said.

When firefighters are not responding to emergency calls or making public appearances, they typically are training.

Wingbermuehle said there is a mix of fire, rescue and medical training firefighters work on every day.

“I have pulled into (House 5) on weekends not expecting to see anybody, and I pull around back and the entire shift is training on a Sunday afternoon,” he said. “That tells me what our organization is all about. No one has forced them to do that. They take a lot of that on themselves. They have a drive to help each other improve.

“It is really neat to know that is the type of people we have protecting our community.”

At Antonia Fire, the captain typically decides what training exercises are needed for the crew, Chrisco said.

“(The captain) may say we have someone who has never tied ropes and knots and hoisted a stokes basket off a hill,” he said. “(The crew) will set up a mock thing in the ditch and do that for a couple of hours. We found the most successful thing is to allow the captains to steer the ship when it comes to training exercises with their shifts. They know the weaknesses and strong points.”

For their training, firefighters may include practicing putting on gear efficiently, ladder climbing techniques and using various tools, Fischer said.

He said crews will often compare how their training exercises went with members of other crews.

“There is a bit of that inter-crew competition, which is good because it pushes them to be better,” Fischer said. “When they do have to respond to a call, they should hopefully be in their peak performance. In our jobs, every second counts.”

Firefighters’ training is not limited to physical tasks. Many take time during every shift to complete online courses to either earn a degree or keep various certifications up to date, he said.

“A lot of our certifications expire after two to three years,” Chrisco said. “You have to have so many hours of continuing education for things like an EMT license or fire officer type stuff.”

A firefighters’ daily routine also includes mundane tasks, such as washing firetrucks, cleaning the bays and fire houses they are stationed at, preparing meals, cutting the grass and other general maintenance tasks.

“There are some not so glorified parts of the job, which are important,” Wingbermuehle said. “They are responsible for a lot of the station maintenance and cleaning. We have an obligation to keep our buildings in good condition. We don’t own them, the community does. That is something we never want to forget.”

Firefighters do have down time during a two-day shift.

Dunn said a typical day begins at about 7 a.m. and ends at about 6 p.m., and while there may be some down time during shifts, they can quickly be taken over by emergency responses.

“In July, during the storms and floods, that was a 20-hour day with them going from call to call,” he said. “While we were responding to flooding situations, we had a house fire. There are times that a day goes by, and you are like, ‘What just happened?’”

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Antonia firefighter still loves job after more than three decades in the field

By Kevin Carbery

Stephen Sanders said firefighting grabbed him at a young age.

Sanders, 50, works as a firefighter/EMT for the Antonia Fire Protection District.

“I started in firefighting when I was 14,” he said. “I was an Explorer (an organization for young people interested in the fire service) through the Festus Fire Department.”

Sanders attended Festus R-6 schools while his father, who was in the military, was stationed in the St. Louis area.

“I’m a military transplant,” he said. “I was the new kid in school. My dad was stationed at Jefferson Barracks. I overheard some kids at school talking about fire practice. I inquired what they were talking about, and they said they were Explorers and explained what Explorers were about. Basically, junior firefighters.

“I joined. As an Explorer, we learned fire basics and what it takes to be a firefighter. We would hang around the firehouse and learn the equipment and the importance of being a firefighter. It sat well with me.”

Sanders said he remained interested in firefighting beyond the Explorers, but he took a circuitous route before becoming a full-time firefighter.

After graduating from Festus High School, he received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Columbia College (in Columbia) and later earned a master’s in business administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. He since has earned master’s degrees in a dual program for emergency management and homeland security from Grand Canyon University.

“I was a volunteer firefighter with Festus for numerous years,” he said. “I also was a volunteer firefighter with Affton. I eventually became a dispatcher working for Jefferson County and St. Louis County. I worked collectively for 15 years as a dispatcher. I also was in the Air National Guard in St. Louis. My role was crash rescue-firefighter.”

Sanders left dispatching to work for General Motors in its OnStar operations. From there he went to work for the Social Security Administration, followed by the Veterans Administration in St. Louis.

“Then, I became a full-time firefighter,” he said. “I decided running into burning buildings is more fun than dealing with red tape.”

Sanders joined Antonia Fire as a volunteer in 2017 and later became a part-timer with the district and then a full-timer in 2021.

“As a driver-operator, I drive and operate the big trucks and maintain and operate the tools on the truck (along with firefighting and EMT duties),” he said.

Sanders said he is happy to be a full-time firefighter.

“This part of my life is the first time I feel excited to get up and to go to work,” he said.

Sanders said firefighters experience incredible highs and tremendous lows in their line of work. “There’s always an opportunity to help somebody. In July of this year, my crew and myself were doing an inspection at a business. A gentleman walked up to me and said, ‘Your name is Steve,’ and he said he wanted to thank me. He said ‘You saved my life.’

“As it happened, a year to the day he went into cardiac arrest in front of us. Our crew, along with Rock Township Ambulance personnel, performed life-saving measures for nearly 40 minutes. He was at his home, and his family had called because he was sick. He actually went into cardiac arrest and died while we were there.

“We brought him back. We stabilized him and got him to the hospital. He remembered me because we had spoken before he went into cardiac arrest.”

Sanders said it is unusual for emergency responders to find out what becomes of people after treating them.

“Unfortunately. on calls like this, we normally never know what the outcome was,” he said. “So, this was something special.”

On the opposite side of the scale, firefighters also must deal with tragedies, Sanders said.

“My worst day was a house fire on Christmas morning several years ago,” he said. “The family lost everything. They lost both the husband and a child. We found them under a mattress. You could tell the father had tried to shelter the child.”

Sanders said his best and worst days as a firefighter exemplify what it means to work in the occupation.

“The best part is being there for people in their worst moments and being there to resolve their problems,” he said. “The worst part is basically the same thing. It’s like a double-edged sword.”

Antonia Fire Chief Matt Krutzsch said he appreciates what Sanders brings to the fire protection district.

“Stephen’s background as a dispatcher helps us,” Krutzsch said. “He’s been at Jefferson County 911 Dispatch. Having the dispatcher knowledge helps on the fire side with the radio language. He understands the language used on both sides.”

Krutzsch said Sanders’ communications skills help Antonia Fire in other ways.

“He does community relations for us and is a great speaker,” Krutzsch said.

Sanders, who has two children, lives in Mehlville.

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Union serves most of the area fire service agencies

By Teresa Inserra

Ten of the 17 area fire service agencies that cover Jefferson County and Eureka are members of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), including the Antonia, Cedar Hill, De Soto Rural, Hillsboro, High Ridge, Rock Community, Saline Valley and Eureka fire protection districts and Festus and Herculaneum fire departments. The five Jefferson County ambulance districts and Jefferson County 911 Dispatch are also represented by IAFF.

Paul Vessells, who lives in Jefferson County outside Pacific, is a full-time firefighter and the vice president of IAFF Local 2655 (the Professional Firefighters of Eastern Missouri) Fifth District, which solely covers Jefferson County. While the Eureka Fire Protection District covers some of northwestern Jefferson County, it belongs to another district that includes St. Louis County.

When Vessells was elected vice president in 2020, only four Jefferson County fire agencies were members of the union. In 2022-2023, though, five more fire agencies voted to join.

He said the De Soto Fire Department currently is organizing.

“We just got confirmation … that they’re going to hold their election for that, and it should be done in the next month or so,” Vessells said on Oct. 4.

The reasons for agencies voting to join IAFF have varied, he said.

“No one was really coming to me saying, ‘Hey, we have a bad situation,” Vessells said. “These new memberships that have come in – it’s going on six in the last couple of years – they’ve all come with good intentions, just wanting to make their place a better place. I think they see what’s going on around them and they see other departments that have flourished and we’ve helped them.”

He said the union’s goal is to ensure firefighters have a good working environment.

“Our biggest goal is to secure what we call collective bargaining agreements with these agencies,” he said. “If it’s a fire department, it will usually be with a city administrator/board of aldermen, the chief. With fire districts and EMS districts, it’s the board of directors and administrator.

“We try to establish good working conditions with their benefits, secure time off, pay, things like that. Now that’s like the simplest thing we do. Beyond that, we provide representation for any kind of grievance procedure, so if there’s an employee that has an issue with maybe a policy broken or a reprimand that was unjust, we do represent them in that as well.”

Vessells said the IAFF doesn’t come in as “big union bullies.”

“We come in as partners,” he said. “That’s what I’ve always tried to convey. We’re a partner with you guys. We want to make your department a completely better place.”

Vessells said it might take years to see improvements at an agency if it needs a tax increase or a bond issue in order to get newer equipment and better facilities.

He said the IAFF has helped the Cedar Hill and Antonia fire protection districts seek grants and will assist Antonia with the $11 million bond issue it will ask voters to approve in November.

“They need to build a new house, (renovate House 2), and they need to replace some old equipment,” he said. “I used to work at Antonia years ago when they bought that 2003 American LaFrance that they’re trying to replace. Firetrucks are expensive.”

The IAFF also works with politicians around the state to improve the lives and working conditions of its members.

Vessells said the IAFF was integral in getting the Missouri Fire Fighters Critical Illness Pool established to provide cancer and behavioral health benefits to firefighters facing serious illness.

Hillsboro Fire Chief Brian Gaudet said joining the union in 2002 has not caused any problems for the agency he leads.

“It’s been great,” he said. “It created a collaborative relationship between management and employees, which we had all along but (was) further solidified.”

Since Hillsboro Fire joined the union, management better understands the employees’ wants and needs and employees better understand how budgets are formulated and how district finances are managed, Gaudet said.

He said the union helped Hillsboro Fire get its message out that the April 2023 ballot measure was needed to save the jobs of six district firefighters.

Gaudet said the union also has peer support teams that offer help with mental health needs, and firefighters have access to the names and contact information for peer support members if that is ever needed.

He said the union also is working to develop a health insurance pool to try to “combat the rising costs we face for employees.”

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Crystal City Fire has only volunteer agency in county

By Kevin Carbery

While the Crystal City Fire Department is the only all-volunteer firefighting agency left in Jefferson County, those kinds of departments are not so rare in Missouri, said Tony Bova, the Crystal City fire chief.

“In the state of Missouri, there are more volunteer departments than there are paid departments,” he said.

“You get down to the Bootheel, they’re all volunteer,” Capt. Patrick Friedmeyer added.

Bova and several members of his command staff recently gathered to talk about their all-volunteer department, which has 32 members.

While people might think a volunteer firefighting agency must always be looking for new members, Bova said that is not the case with Crystal City.

“We actually try to stay at 32,” he said. “That’s because of the amount of equipment we have for each one. The cost to dress a volunteer is $4,000. That’s not including the cost of training or anything.”

Bova said if the department needs to replace a volunteer firefighter, usually someone can easily be found to step up and fill the role.

“They come to us,” he said. “It’s by word of friendship. Sometimes, we have to turn them down.”

As response time is vital, all volunteers must live near Crystal City, he said.

“They’ve got to live within a 5-mile radius of the city,” Bova said.

Most work or own businesses not far from town, he said.

“Me, Carl Rhineberger and Capt. Ron Cartee are retired (from other professions),” Bova said. “Patrick owns his own company. (Assistant Chief) Mike Schrage owns his own company.”

Bova said Crystal City’s roster of volunteers contains people from all walks of life.

“A lot of guys have normal jobs,” he said. “We have guys who work in factories. We have dispatchers. We have a heavy equipment mechanic who works on our engines, Marvin Thurman. He saves the city a lot of money.”

Bova said the volunteer firefighters can be counted on to assemble and respond to emergency calls quickly.

“Normally on weeknights, we’ll get eight to 12 coming to calls,” he said. “On the weekends, almost everybody is available.”

Like all firefighting agencies in the county, Crystal City Fire has mutual assistance agreements with other fire departments and districts, which mean many more hands can be called on to help during emergencies, Friedmeyer said.

“We could have (all the other) departments here and we could go help any of the other departments,” he said.

Rhineberger said the volunteers are ready to respond to any type of emergency.

“Guys will leave their families for a storm watch,” he said, explaining that the volunteers gather at the station during major storms so they’re ready to respond to emergencies.

Bova said all the volunteers receive $20 every time they respond to a call.

“It’s $20 for five minutes or five hours,” he said. “Everybody gets this.”

Bova said his department has no shortage of experience in its ranks.

“I started in 1972,” he said. “Mike (Schrage) before that, about 53 years. Ron (Cartee) has done it for 51 years. That’s 150 years of experience.”

When asked what drew them to become volunteer firefighters, the men offered common answers.

“It’s not about the money. The community is what we work for,” Bova said. “We enjoy what we do. We do it for the citizens of Crystal City.”

The volunteers form a strong bond, the Crystal City firefighters said, noting that many members come from the same families, Bova said.

“We’re a close group. Both of my sons are volunteers here,” Bova said.

“Both of my sons and my dad are volunteers,” Friedmeyer said.

“It’s in the blood,” Cartee added.

County’s largest ladder truck

The Crystal City Fire Department has the county’s largest ladder truck, the Crystal City firefighters said.

In 2016, the Crystal City Council agreed to spend about $1.4 million for a customized T-Rex firetruck from Rosenbauer Minnesota LLC. The 43-foot-long truck, which arrived in 2018, has a 115-foot-tall ladder on an articulating platform. Since the ladder is mounted in the middle of the truck, it makes it more maneuverable than other ladder trucks and easier to rescue people from tall structures.

City officials said they needed to buy the large ladder truck in case of emergencies at Mercy Jefferson Hospital in Crystal City.

“We’ve used it quite a bit,” Bova said. “Being an aerial platform like that makes a big difference. We’ve used it for our own emergencies. We had it at De Soto for a recycling plant fire and at the rail yard.”

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