Not that I have an issue with this, but how often do they actually fight fires? Honestly, I'm not sure how often any firefighters work. I know there at the firehouse all the time, but it seems like fires don't occur that often.
I can't speak for Reedy Creek, but I will speak for my dept. I know the stigma associated with a lot of firefighters is all we do is sleep, grill out, exercise, watch T.V. and so forth, and while we might do those things through out a 24 hour shift we're also subject to various emergencies from medical, fire, accidents, entrapment, hazmat, and the times when someone calls 911 and they don't know who to send... they send the fire dept.
I can also say that we have a lot more fires than what the news reports, a lot of times the only fires that get reported are the ones that get out of hand. The kitchen fires that we get there and put out quickly hardly get reported.
I do agree that Reedy Creek probably doesn't have as many fires as a normal municipality, but they also have to train and respond to several situations that I'll never have to deal with. The monorail, rides, pyrotechnics, to name a few.
Municipalities often take the time that the truck is out of the station to determine how busy we are. Even if we get to a call and are only there for 5 min., try getting up at midnight, 2am, and 4am, jump out of bed, get dressed, think you are having a real emergency, drive around the block and then TRY to go back to bed, only to do it again a couple hours later.
We also have numerous hours of training and tasks to do each month.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I love my job. I love the guys I work with. But I do get frustrated when people say we don't do anything...
