The one thing i can say about firefighting is that it’s a brotherhood between men that can't be broken. I like the feeling that i get when i help someone though it can be sad seeing the things you see when you go on a call you have to put your emotions aside and do what you’ve been trained to do. We go out when others run away, we answer the door when fate is knocking at our door step. All for one purpose. to save those in need

In Jan. of 2000 I went to South Africa for my job. On Feb 6 my apt building caught on fire. It was in an historic building and was started by a careless tenant who left something on the stove while she went to chat with an upstairs neighbor. The entire 4th story burned away, and the 3rd story (where I lived) was now an open roof. I had 2 cats in my apartment, both were saved by firefighters.

I lost pictures, jewelry and most of my furniture. My kitchen table and chairs were saved. I didn't come back home until late March. and then only for a week. While moving my rescued chairs for my kitchen table, noticed a handprint on one of them. I called my landlord and was told a firefighter had carried it downstairs, after realizing it was salvageable. The handprint never disappeared.  I stopped and got a few bricks and keep them with me for luck.

My first ever interior attack on a fire was on a Burn-To-Learn.  I went in and wasn't aware flames were rolling over head and melting my helmet off my head!

The fire world is a little family in itself. I have been fighting fire professionally since I was 18. Worked full time as a structural firefighter I quit the FD because I wanted to be a hotshot and moved to the Los Padres and rappelled and hotshotted there until I missed home too much and transferred to a Rappell crew at home here in Montana , where I am now. I also went back east the last two winters to Asheville hotshots where I was a crewmember and then a Foreman on the shots last winter.