45
LL THE AIR CONDITIONING, the vehicle exhaust,
everything is connected to a building-management
system,” Loudermilk says. “It’s all software. If a
thermostat is going haywire, people get emails. And
they can control things remotely.”
The clean air technology is a vast improvement
on what once was in place at fire stations — which,
in some cases, was nothing. Assistant chief of operations Sammy Flowers,
a 22-year veteran and the son of a Wilmington firefighter, says in the past
there was little consideration given to the harmful effects of the exhaust.
“I remember old No. 6 station, at Greenfield Lake,” he says. “Where the
fire trucks would back in, right at the tailboard of the exhaust, were two
to three chairs and a TV. That’s where they hung out. When the fire truck
would crank up it was blowing that combustible exhaust right into that place
they were living. That’s one thing that always comes to mind. I remember
seeing those old polyester chairs, and a fire truck right there. I thought it was
cool at the time. But it was really very dangerous.”
Today’s stations are designed with the firefighters’ health and safety in
mind. Station 3 has a gear washing and drying station on the far side of the
apparatus bay. Smoke is a carcinogen, so getting the equipment clean after a
call and keeping it away from the firefighters’ living quarters is of paramount
importance.
“There’s just a different way of doing things now,” Blackley says. “There’s
much more emphasis on decontamination. Cancer has become very prevalent
in firefighters and it’s because of the smoke. It gets on their skin. The first
thing they need to do when they get back is take a shower, and clean their
gear. The turnout gear needs to be washed. Used to be I never washed my
turnout gear. I’d come back and I’d scrub it down if it was really dirty, but
most of the time we never would. It was cool to have dirty gear. You were a
firefighter.”
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