Ride Along - 2nd Busiest Firehouse in the U.S.A.

morning from Firehouse one in Wichita Kansas according to Firehouse Magazine's National run survey this is the second busiest Firehouse in the country responding to over 28 000 calls a year I got here 20 minutes ago and we had a walk-in medical assist and before I could even start my intro we jumped on Tower one and Battalion one responded as well to a reported structure fire we're just getting the day started okay foreign foreign guys we're on scene of this uh systems alarm at a hotel in Old Town uh this is Lieutenant right yes sir Lieutenant Josh Griffin uh drop one and uh he's the boss for the day on the truck company and one of the things that I noticed about this call which I absolutely love is you guys were treating this like full smash anticipating that this was a working fire and there are places that I have seen where that's not the case automatic alarm comes in it might be a single unit response they might go not emergent because statistically these calls don't always turn out to be fires very often so what's your take as a truck boss down here when you arrive at a call like this uh so basically we treat any automatic fire alarm uh when we turn the corner we expect that it's on fire the system is in place to to detect uh that there's something going on over there smoke in the building or a reported fire so we treat it as such and we can always scale that back it's harder for us to upscale that you know no big deal just you know it's another fire alarm that we're making two three four a day so if we go into it hey this we expected it's going to be on fire we trade it that way then we're already in place for when it is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] please [Music] [Applause] occupants were left some food on the stove and forgot about it set off their uh fire alarm so we'll just set up a little ventilation and clear it out and pack up for the next one it looks like yet another opportunity to throw the aerial yeah absolutely so that's something else that we do uh you know a lot of times we get out and and we talked about you know training and sitting on buildings and things of that nature so this is a good opportunity on on system alarms things of that nature even if it's you know false or whatnot but it gives us the opportunity to set on a structure that normally we wouldn't get to so that you know you can kind of turn runs like this into a training opportunity so not necessarily needed probably but at least it's getting our guys uh thinking about you know spotting for if this thing was on fire thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] all right I haven't even had an opportunity to see all this Firehouse yet but it's pretty big so I would love to see a walk around and where everything's at maybe a history you want to throw in and uh I'd just love to see the place that you guys call home all right perfect so welcome to station one um this station was built in 1972 okay um before it moved here originally was uh Central Station located kind of where City Hall is now um before that it was downtown on Maine so kind of kind of little history of where we got today in you know 1972. so um we'll start off and we'll just make our way down here yeah kind of as we come in um come into the office office area so this is station one is in the first Battalion and it's also the sock Battalion Special Operations so we house a lot of the dive equipment things like that for the special ops teams and so they run a lot of their equipment out of here so that's kind of what this room is and then Lieutenant's office here and then this would be the captain's office hello hi hard at work right uh and then back here we get into uh this would be the Battalion Chief's office and uh and then we have the bedrooms located on the first floor for the captain and then also for battalion chief have their own living quarters down here with uh with their own restroom that's pretty well the office area unless you want to see the the nice closet that was turned into a bunk room this is for the guys that don't like to slide the pole coming out to the app floor so here's station one we run um battalion chief uh runs out of here an engine company a truck company a squad and then also the mobile air unit the fire investigators also run out of here as well this used to be the Lieutenant's office we've kind of turned this into more of a mail room um kind of equipment room there and then off the front of the station is the watchman's booth and so it's a place where guys guys would sit uh and be able to really answer the doors and then also you know back back before my time the dispatch would all ring in through here and then they would alert the station they would kick the lights on and then there's garage doors in there they can open all the garages shut the garages so it's kind of neat you know something that a lot of our older stations have that watchman's area when you were put on watch for the night so the two downtown engines are 2000 GPM Pumpers down here and So currently they're in a in a reserve rig so all of our engines that are housed with uh another piece whether it be a truck or a squad a minimum Staffing of three and then all of our truck companies are a minimum for Staffing and then our pickups our squads run with two and then truck one we're in a newer Fierce mid-mount ascendant one of the things that I like most of most of our stations when you come come and uh come in we we always seem to have firemen kind of congregate to the app floor so you always find tables and and so this is kind of the area where you know our morning shift takes place shift trade takes place and you know guys drink their coffee here and kind of plan the day out and kind of what's going on there and so it's kind of neat we like you know you sit out here get to the rigs quicker and and kind of makes it for an enjoyable time yeah bonding this this one I noticed you guys have it set up even better because you got your coffee station and refrigerator right here right in the bag doesn't want to go too far right yeah and then our mobile air unit uh here uh so the city we run uh we only run the one mobile air unit so they respond they'll respond to all uh working fires and then our nice uh I think this gym was was the original equipment from 1972 when they moved in uh so it's kind of kind of a place for guys to come in and get their workout in and it uh actually station one has a I know it doesn't look at as nice but uh fairly nice nice room for a gym what do we got LT the benefits uh with with our department is we're we're Fire based fire department and so EMS is ran by Central County and the fire department is its own Infinity in that in that aspect so we respond uh basically as as EMTs or First Responders and so we are there to to to assist them whether that be you know getting an assessment getting vitals doing that that stuff there uh and and then mainly on you know more your critical uh CPR just assist them in that role with with those more critical uh Concepts basically give them more hands this is a bit of a climb up these stairs you kind of have to take the poll I think if you get a call absolutely yeah yeah it gets our workout coming up and then uh the polls are nice to get down for sure absolutely so coming upstairs uh here on the right this would be our fire investigator unit there's multiple options to get to um the bunk room to get to where the poles are located so this would be the men's locker room you know when this opened in 1972 my you know when this opened in 1972 my my grandfather actually opened the station my grandfather actually opened the station which is is pretty neat that's awesome um and you talk with him you know and and at that time there was there was roughly 25 to 30 firemen assigned to station one um and whereas we're at now today we're looking at you know fully staffed at 11. yeah this is a huge space yep so then you just have uh shower area being here I really enjoy you know it's the open bunk room style and you know I think it just brings everybody together more and the common hallway areas on both sides of the of the men's uh bunk room to get access to the the bunk room and then uh through here would be the women's same setup that was in there shower and lockers and sinks and and stuff like that so yeah and then come into the uh the bunk room and so again like I said you know it's a fairly large bunker room and wide open and so one of the one of the lieutenants uh sleeps in the kind of gets his own little privacy room it's funny when I'm up here and I look at this setup and I think to myself if I were a firefighter assigned here and I was sleeping in that bed I don't have a lot of time to wake up before I'm hitting the pole and I'm at the rig that's that is a fast transition right there yeah absolutely yeah I think there's sometimes you wonder how you got down yeah because you're not completely awake yet I believe that 100 yeah but you know it's it's uh very rare that we see any kind of uh uh injuries from from sliding the poles so yeah what do we have here is this like a penalty box or uh so that's a actually an old uh telephone booth okay and uh actually when I was a fireman here there actually used to be a telephone in there you could come in here and shut your door and have some privacy wow and I would assume that this has probably been here since the station was built we respond to a report of a shooting the dispatch will notify us that this you know to stand off and so basically we respond into the area to a safe distance away and we wait for WPD to make sure to clear the scene make sure it's safe for us to move in uh and so once they give us that all clear then then we move in uh and then uh this this incident here they were having a trying to locate the individual enough cops or Circle in the area we moved in to assist with searching for the victim as he reported that somebody's seen him actually walk down the street somewhere any kind of indication that that it's you know violent or or disturbances anything like that we just stand off and wait for for uh PD to show up I'm just gonna close it you're good buddy welcome again so the number three represents third generation firemen my grandfather my uncle and my and then myself my grandfather came on in 1962 to 82 for Wichita and then my uncle came on in 1987 and did 33 years and just recently retired and then I've just turned over 19 this year and then I uh and and kind of remembrance to them is is to those who came before me all right [Music] different fire 550 West Central 1008 for Barclay Square Apartments station one two four five seven nine eleven percent [Music] Apartments [Music] 1000 right it is our calling for his number it is very investigator 196 multiplayer one we have seven rescue one plus three plus five truck one trip two four eight apartment Empire come on up you feel good fishing one with the scratch if they need it [Music] I mean some tough one all right thanks Joel he'll return the whole point so what do we have uh so recorded uh building fire that we had a discharge extinguisher on the second floor of dry cam no fire [Music] [Applause] so I started my day here at Wichita station one knowing that this is one of the busiest fire houses in the country it's the busiest Firehouse at Wichita and from what I'm understanding it might be the busiest Firehouse in Kansas that's definitely the feel I got today as we ran around town I truly did lose count of the amount of runs that we took in which is a good thing saw a lot of different calls from EMS to potential structure fires to alarms just kind of running the gamut and Griff you and your crew you're just fantastic so I really appreciate you having me and on behalf of the YouTube audience having all of us in your firehouse and on your fire truck today it's been great absolutely yep and we just want to say thank you for coming out and uh you know for sharing our story and the the work that these guys put in is quality work and and it's great to to have it be shown to the world really so thank you again for coming absolutely and for those of you who are new to this Channel or watching this video please like and share it and if you haven't subscribed to this channel yet please do that see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Eric Hurst

Views: 579,377

Keywords: Ride along, Firefighters, Tones, Code 3, Power Call, Q siren, air horn, Zetron, Fire Station, Tour, What's inside, Eric hurst, wichita, kansas, structure fire, Pierce Mfg, ride along, day in the life, Station Saturday, fire alarm, rescue, EMT, medical, firehouse, busiest, career, job, old town, engine, truck, battalion, shooting, gsw, on scene, ems, paramedics, reality, real life, public information officer

Id: _UlvN8FF4yc

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023