24 hours at the Lake Avenue fire station
By LUCIAN McCARTY

Firefighters always make the news. When everyone is running one way away from a disaster, they are the ones heading in.
In Saratoga Springs, the department averages nine emergency calls a day. Some days are busier than others. The crews work 24-hour shifts. On one day, off three.
Despite the high-profile part of the work they do fighting fires, responding to accidents and other emergencies, a lot more goes into their job.
"It’s a lot of taking care of the building, taking care of the equipment," Capt. John Kirkpatrick said. "We don’t sit around idle. Between our regular daily tasks and training, there is always something to do."
Duty roster
"Glass and Brass"
Every morning at 8 a.m., the 24-hour crews change shifts. A dry-erase board lets the incoming shift know what truck and position they are assigned to for the day, what roads are closed and what inspections are scheduled for the engines. Then, the first task is the "morning readiness check."
Drivers check their trucks, paramedics check their medical bags and equipment and the officer starts the day’s paperwork.
The new day’s crew launches into a roster of duties - bathrooms are cleaned, floors are swept, stairs are mopped, garbage cans are emptied - and, like a group of brothers doing chores, the worst tasks all go to the greenhorns.
There are weekly tasks, too Fridays, all of the windows are washed and all of the brass in the building is polished.
"You’ve got to keep it looking good," said Aaron Dyer, a 12-year veteran in the department, pulling a step-ladder up to the brass fireman’s pole to clean it. He said there is a technique to sliding down the pole: "Don’t let go."
"The Family"
About 9 a.m., most of the firefighters are in the dining room drinking coffee.
The man with "The BOSS" emblazoned on his coffee mug, Capt. Kirkpatrick, discusses their plans for the day and the calls from the previous shift.
"It didn’t sound like a bad call – difficulty breathing," Fitzpatrick says of a call days before. "Then the guy dropped dead in the parking lot."
Newspapers are strewn about several tables and the crews talk about getting lunch for the day, chipping in to give the senior man on duty the money to go grocery shopping for the shift - good-naturedly harassing him the entire time about his vegetarianism.
Being with the firefighters at the Lake Avenue Fire Department is like being a visitor at someone’s family reunion.
"It’s the brotherhood the family," said Chief Robert Williams.
"Sometimes it can be dysfunctional," he said with a laugh, but once the firefighters get onto a shift, they usually don’t change it. "These guys live together they work together, they eat together," they sleep together, train together, work out together, do chores together and banter endlessly.
"Counting Band Aids"
After Fitzpatrick briefs them on the tasks of the day and the chores are completed, more intensive weekly checks are made of their equipment.
"Our No. 1 job is to be ready for everything. We check our equipment and double-check our equipment sometimes," Assistant Chief Peter Shaw said. "Our biggest mistake would be to not be ready."
On Fridays, the crews go through all of the paramedics’ bags, inventorying their supplies (Band Aids included), checking expiration dates on medicine and ensuring they have everything they will need to respond to calls.
"The majority of our calls these days are EMS calls," Shaw said. Of the approximately 3,200 calls the department received this year, 2,103 were for medical assistance.
All of the firefighters are trained emergency medical technicians, but many have more training than that. "We always have at least one paramedic assigned to an engine every day," he said.
"It’s been a natural progression over the years and decades," Williams said. "We’re an emergency services organization. (EMS calls) are going to increase as our fires drop. The fire codes, education and all of the things we do to prevent fires are working."
"All fire personnel report to the classroom"
That announcement comes over the loudspeakers just before 1 p.m., but by that time most of the crew members have made their way to the large room that has the layout of a high-school classroom. Tables and chairs are set up facing the front of the room, textbooks for "Firefighter 1" are lined up in cabinets with DVDs and VHS tapes for training.
It could be any other classroom, except for the brass fireman’s pole on one side of the room, one of five in the building.
And the training and studies never end.
Firefighters practice working the fire hoses, climbing ladders, working with hazardous materials, wall breaches (breaking through a wall to get access to an adjacent room), bailing out and repelling down buildings, driving fire trucks and even how to tarp furniture to protect it from water damage.
Friday is EMS training day at the station. They have dummies for all sorts of medical training: CPR, clearing breathing passageways, even a rubber arm with veins for practice administering IVs.
The firefighters even study construction materials and methods to understand how they burn.
"Pre-planning a fire"
"This will last longer in a fire load than trusses would," said Brian Moran, standing on the third floor of a six-unit apartment building on Woodlawn Avenue. He explained how the fire reacts with the rafter construction rather than trusses. Trusses can burn through in nine minutes, but the rafters will hold up longer.
He types the information into a laptop he totes while accompanying Lt. Joe Dolan on a fire inspection.
"We keep a lot of pertinent information for our responding crews," Moran said.
On the laptop he fills out a profile of the building: where the gas and electric shutoffs are, how many units there are, what the roof is constructed of, where a second engine should respond for a fire, and a list of other things firefighters should know about a building when responding to an emergency there.
As of early December, the fire department had conducted 539 inspections in 2011. Sometimes the fire engines with a full compliment go on inspections.
"We’ll use it to familiarize ourselves with the building," Assistant Chief Shaw said. "We like to get out there to know the businesses, know the people and know the lay of the land."
By 4 p.m., the regular workday ends for the crews. They are allowed to take it easy - except for the ever-present possibility of an emergency.
At 8 p.m., they are allowed to bed down for the night, but most don’t go down that early.
"It’s that anticipation," Thomas said. "You’re trying to go to sleep with that little bit of adrenaline in your head."
Any minute the sirens could blare, switching on the bunk-room lights and sending the fire crews scrambling down the poles.