Should I call you a fireman, firewoman or fire person?

The title of this post was a question that my sweet and hilarious friend VALERIE posed to me this afternoon and reminded me that I needed to post something on this new thing in my life. So, if you haven't been reading lately, back in November I joined Marion Montana's Rural Volunteer Fire Department. This picture was taken at one of our training days two Saturdays ago.

We spent the morning learning about NIMS and procedures that are necessary for safety. Then we took the engines up to Lang Creek Brewing Company's brewery and spent the rest of our time doing rescue scenarios. Three victims were placed inside of the brewery and it was filled with fake smoke. We were sent in as units of 3 and told which side to being our search on. I was in the 4th group and we proceeded with a left hand search. It was amazing! The building was extremely dark and smoke filled to limit your visibility to about 3 feet. Our unit crawled around on our knees searching for fire and victims. We located the fire and put it out, then continued onwards. I was holding the hose in one hand, a Halogin in the other. It's amazing how quickly time flys while you are in there, for when we finally found our first victim and dragged him out, John and I had spent over 12 minutes in the building. The adreniline rush that went through my body was close to if not better than cliff diving!
I feel privaledged and excited to be a part of such a dynamic and growing volunteer department and look forward to posting more on here as it happens.