The Lonely Stretch

Sometimes as an officer you feel like all you’re doing on the fireground is playing catch up. The tasks of setting the scene up, the 360, masking up while the stretch is happening, secondary units arriving, the scene dynamically changing at the blink of an eye, all create some extra mental stress. It’s important that our mask up times are really fast, that we have a system to chase the kinks, make sure the hose stretch looks good and sets us up for the interior push, and that we are able to process small bits of information during the 360 in hyper speed. It’s a lot. If we don’t intentionally train and practice on each one of these parts (along with many others) then we can’t assume that the fire scene is going to go as smoothly as we would like. 

Your body responds to stress in predictable ways at predictable times. Learn what they are during training and work on adaptability. Your breathing is a good place to start. That will lead to a foundation of success and will truly build your and your crews mental toughness.  

Get comfortable being lonely.  All of us at one time or another are going to be lonely in the fire service.  Whether it is doing the lonely hard work in developing our basic skills, self reflection and introspection as we prepare for a promotional process, or if we are having to train in the bay by ourselves as our crewmates spend another long hour in the recliners working on their sleep apnea, loneliness is part of the deal.  We work, we train, we dedicate ourselves because we care and we we respect the oath we took for THEM.  For those who depend on us.  For those who we think of as the loneliness sets in.