HE CLIMBS FOUR-STORY LADDERS into burning buildings, even though he’s afraid of heights. He keeps himself in top shape so he can carry anyone out of a fire on his shoulders. He and a buddy traveled to Ukraine because he hates war and thought he could help. (His buddy was killed.)
He’s worked 20 years for the fire department, haunted by ghosts, smells of burning bodies, and children he couldn’t save. And his voice cracks when he recounts all of his daughter’s missed birthdays.
So why does he do it?
Because he knows just how good he is at what he does. And he knows if he doesn’t do it, people will die. He does it because he can, and, with sadness, because he must.
How did you get into this business?
I was busy being a teller at Los Alamos National Bank. And this guy in line came up to me, and he is like, Hey man, you’re a big guy. You’re personable, and you work harder than anybody I’ve seen. You should quit this job and go be a fireman. And I was like, Yeah? Then he said, I’m serious. So I was like, Well, I’ll give it a shot.
I was 22, and I never really liked jobs. I get kind of bored easy. I didn’t like showing up to a job and doing the same thing every day.
Firefighting is not boring?
No.
What’s an average day like?
I was recently promoted to Fire Inspector. So that’s different from when I was on the trucks.
But back when I was a rookie, everything’s on edge because that siren can just go off whenever, and you’ll hear it like, do, do do, do, do. There are various tones for each station. You get that Pavlovian response.
They say firefighters have trauma because of these tones – they shoot you from zero to sixty in a second. You go from eating or taking a shower to running into a burning building and rescue a kid who’s choking. You have to be super on point. It’s like a fight-or-flight response. Super unhealthy.
What happens next?
You rush out to the trucks – you’re throwing on bunker gear. When I first started, we had a giant map of the city on the wall, and you’d run over to it, find where the location was, then you run to the map book, and like flip through and find the actual address. And then, since it’s Santa Fe, you have like 15 different streets with the same name, and none of them connect. It was a disaster.
Today, it’s like, Siri, take me to this address.
The smartphone is a game changer. Take pharmacology – if we get to a house, and a kid has taken a bottle full of pills, I can take a picture of that pill, and we can figure out what it is and call poison control right from there. I mean, it’s been incredible.
What makes a good fireman?
When I’m on these calls, I’m not concerned about self-preservation. I’m focused on the call. I still take things safely, and I’m not taking unnecessary risks. But if there’s somebody that’s in a serious situation where they might be hurt and I can save them by climbing into a burning building, I’m more concerned about helping them than I am about getting hurt. It’s like a switch.
When I was a river guide and I learned I had that switch, which. I don’t know if it’s an inherent thing, but I knew that I was capable of doing it.
It’s funny, when I’m in firefighter class I’m completely unfocused, but when I have chaos around me, I get hyper-focused. I want to go to schools and recruit kids, like, Look, man, science class is hard for you, but you might find a career that is perfect for you, and it might be firefighting.
What do you think about when you come to the scene?
Do you remember last winter when it was like minus 20 degrees? It was miserable. We get to this house fire, fully involved. Someone on the scene said, I think those people are still home! So we grab a hose line and we break into the house.
It goes from like freezing cold to the hottest you’ve ever been. We have a thermal imaging camera that shows the heat in the room, and the whole thing’s white. You can’t see the outline of anything.
I couldn’t concentrate because everything’s just torched. Nobody could live through that. Then the siren blasts three horns, which means Mayday! Get to safety, the building could collapse!
So we have to follow the hose to get back out, and it’s so hot that I can’t concentrate. My skin feels like it’s sunburned all over. It was like sitting on a frying pan, just cooking.
We get out and we go from the frying pan to minus 20. All the sweat in my mask and suit immediately freezes over. I turn into a statue. That’s the hottest and the coldest I’ve ever been.
And is there a moment where the smallest thing made the difference?
All of the time. People get trapped in flooding waters in arroyos all the time. When we arrive, we have to get to that person before the water rises. You never know how quickly it’s getting higher, or if the car’s gonna roll. You have to make a split-second decision to get them out, while risking your safety or not risk it and potentially have them perish.
Same thing with car wrecks – you have someone inside a car, it’s rolled and unstable, and you can smell the fumes all around, and you don’t know if or when the car is gonna ignite.
There are so many of those types of events where you have split seconds to make a decision that could affect someone’s life.
Do people you rescue thank you?
Oh yes. People are really great in this town. When you save someone’s life, they’re incredibly grateful.
And now you’re an inspector.
I’m a detective; I solve puzzles. I inspect businesses for licenses and investigate arson. We have a lot of arson in Santa Fe. We look at burn patterns to determine where a fire started and what the cause was.
What are some of the drawbacks from being a firefighter?
I’ve been doing this 20 years, and it’s definitely a hard thing. Everybody’s kind of feeling pretty beat up here in Santa Fe. It’s a hard place to be a firefighter.
Why?
You work nonstop and see a lot of really hard things. Luckily, I think we’re starting to take mental health seriously with firefighters. Seeing 20 years of horrible things affects you. And there are the health risks. My friend Wayne died of cancer. We’re all breathing in horrible things every day.
The hardest part is that you miss your family. I’ve missed so many moments. My daughter can tell you every birthday, Christmas, and school play that I missed. It breaks my heart.
Is she proud of you?
Yeah, she’s proud, but she’d rather have her dad around.
What keeps you going?
A fireman is a rare thing. I can do these things, and almost feel like if I’m not doing it, there might not be someone else that can do that.
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