Lt. Dana Blosser and firefighter Justin Standley are the Fire Officer and the Firefighter of the Year at the Vienna Volunteer Fire Department. (Photo by James Dobbs)
VIENNA — The Vienna Volunteer Fire Department has recognized its Fire Officer and Firefighter of the Year, Lt. Dana Blosser and Justin Standley, respectively.
Blosser grew up in Vienna and graduated from Parkersburg High School in 1995. He is married, has three kids and works for Erie Insurance.
Blosser said he joined the Vienna department in December 2001. He said he enjoys being a firefighter because he likes helping people.
“You normally go in to somebody’s worst case experience and you’re there to help. So no matter if it’s a car wreck, a fire, or you’re just going to some little old lady’s house because the carbon monoxide detector is going off and she doesn’t know what to do,” he said. “The public sees you as someone that can come in and solve whatever is going on.”
Blosser said he enjoys working with the other firefighters. He said he looks up to the older officers and the officers who have left the job or passed away.
“You have to think that they handed it down and it works really well, so you have to figure out what you can do to hand it down to the younger generation, so it stays as a moving, functioning machine,” he said.
Blosser said as you come into the fire station, you think you’re going to save the world. He said as you get older, you realize saving the world isn’t possible and work on making it better for the other firefighters.
“I’m very honored,” he said, about receiving the award. “A lot of the guys around here, we all work very hard. We all take our job seriously and do a very good job.”
Blosser said he trusts his training when things get bad or stressful. He said things are more stressful in a supervisory position because you have to trust the other firefighters to be able to do what they are told. Firefighters must be dedicated and have their heart in it, he said.
Blosser said he doesn’t have much spare time between his job and his position at the fire department. With the time he does have, he enjoys spending it at home with his family or watching his daughter play softball, he said.
Standley is the department’s 2021 Firefighter of the Year award recipient. He said being a firefighter is something he has always wanted to do.
Standley is originally from Vienna where he has lived his entire life. He graduated from PHS and joined the Blennerhassett Volunteer Fire Department in 2017. In 2018, he switched from Blennerhassett VFD to Vienna VFD, while also starting work as an emergency medical technician. He said he works full time as an EMT at Camden Clark and part time in Jackson County.
Standley said he has looked up to firefighters since he was a kid.
“Every time we’d have the trucks come out to our schools for fire prevention month, I always just thought the trucks were cool,” he said. “What the firefighters did was awesome. Just something I always looked up to, and now that I’ve gone through all of the training and everything, I feel like kids look up to me as well.”
Standley said when he was in high school he was able to get all of his certifications through the Caperton Center for Applied Technology. A role model, Jim Reynolds, a retired captain from the Parkersburg Fire Department, was his instructor at the Caperton Center. He said the newer generation of firefighters come from Reynolds’ class.
Standley said his first fire was the IEI warehouse fire in October 2017.
“A kid that was 18-years old really had no idea what to do,” he said. “Here’s the biggest fire in city if not state history. It was pretty crazy.”
The fire erupted from the former Ames Plant on Camden Avenue. Thirty-nine departments were called to fight the fire that lasted 10 days.
“It’s an honor. I’m very proud that they picked me this year,” he said about receiving the award. “It means a lot to me.”
Standley said the award is normally received by firefighters at the top of the department, and that it feels good to be where they were. He enjoys being a firefighter because of the thrill that comes with it. He said you never know when the next call is going to come in, or what you’ll be doing on that call. He said when his pager goes off that’s when you know you have to go to work.
“I’ve left family gatherings, left dinners, left tons of stuff to help the people of this community, which is what I’ve always loved doing, helping people,” he said.
In his spare time, Standley said he usually hangs out around town or at the fire station to wait for calls.