Welcome to the Cicero Firefighters, International Association of
Firefighters, Local 717 web site. Our Local is comprised of 64
members. We are affiliated with the International Association of
Firefighters and the Associated Firefighters of Illinois. Our Local
has endured many challenges over the years, but with the strong
backing of our Union Membership and our Brothers and Sisters in the
International Association Of Firefighters and the Associated
Firefighters of Illinois we have prevailed in all of our battles.
We appreciate you visiting our site and we hope you will return
often to check out our updates.
Fire And Ice- From the Paul Harvey News:
Nobody knows why firemen are firemen. Not even they can
tell you why. It's time someone try to tell you why.
Firefighting is the most risky of all dead-end jobs yet also
the one where most workers are most likely to punch in
early. It's hard enough to believe that; impossible to
explain it. Fire an ice are uncomfortable, separate or
together. Wives hate the hours kids love the noise.
Fire and ice.
Any day at the firehouse the bell from hell puts the
dispatcher on the horn with a tenement tinderbox address.
Into bunker pants- rubber turnout coat- grab the mask-and
go. Minutes later you're on site, as others run out
you go in. You'll need all you can carry. The four
pound axe, a six foot hook, and the Halligen pry-bar.
The ceiling concealing the smoldering has to come down and
it's one of those stubborn tin ones. In the scary dark
with heat eating your ears you are gouging out and tearing
loose and pulling apart; gulping air and tasting black; your
windpipe is closing and you've lost track of which way is
out. Is it worth it?
They've budget- cut your ladder company from six men to five
so now everything you do is 16.67% more difficult, more
dangerous. Your air is low. Inside your mask
you're throwing up. There's a searing ember down your
neck; torn gloves exposing a mashed hand so you emerge from
the holocaust hugging in your elbows some body's singing
kitten. Fire and ice.
You've had minutes of exhilaration on the bouncing rear
mount of a screaming hundred-foot Seagrave. Hours of
using all you've learned and learning more. Now you're
back at the stationhouse. You've unstuffed your
nostrils with soapy fingers. You can almost breath
again.
Next come the tedious hours as you and Brillo gang up on
grimy tools. The cleanup crew at the firehouse is
you. When windows need washing and toilets need cleaning
and floors need mopping and beds need making- you do it.
Fire and ice; they both go with the job.
Then there's that night another engine company gets there
first. You see this wet- eared rookie hot- dogging ahead.
His academy boots still shiny. You lose him inside the
crackling dark. You forget about him until your helmet
warning bell says "get out". The battalion chief is
calling you off. You get out. He'd heard a
scream from the bottom of burning basement stairs and he'd
headed down there.
The other guy didn't. When on the bubbling tar- paper
roof of the three- ton compressor broke through.
That day we lost two. Oh yes, firemen cry. But
only briefly because now comes the inevitable and ever- more
paperwork just in case OSHA complains or somebody sues.
Your B-crew pumper swapped his day shift so some family guy
could be home foe his kid's birthday. Then outbound toward
a false alarm your buddy gets blind- sided by a hot- rod
driven by a drunk. Fire and ice.
The intercom barks again. This time it's a warehouse a
big, fast, multiple blaze, probably torched.
On site engine men draped with icicles dragging a three-
quarter pre- connect froze hose are waiting for your big
line. Laddermen can't make the building without you.
Search, rescue, ventilate. Eventually it's over and
out. You're smoke smudged and sleepless and wrung out- but
you won! Behind graffiti- fouled walls you saved what
you could but the raging blaze that wanted to consume
adjacent buildings but didn't- because you were there.
Back at the firehouse before cleanup you and the guys sit
a spell- tired but stimulated- drinking coffee laughing,
feeling good about one another. Nobody outside your
world can ever know this feeling. In any other uniform you
get streets named after you for killing people. In
this one you risk your life to save people. Until one day
you run out of chances and at one final fire either you buy
it or you don't.
If you don't it's only eventually to be brushed off with a
puny pension. Yet there's no third way you'd ever
leave this job and you're doubting even God knows why.
You're out of the shower now. Most of the grime and some of
the cynicism are down the drain when you hear a strangely
familiar voice saying, "Its worth it."
The quiet voice from nowhere is saying "For salvaging things
and people from flames I have to rely on your hands." You
look around; still nobody. But when you get over your
incredulity you feel better.
Suddenly today's crew cook in the kitchen hollers "Chow!"
It's time to eat. It smells like roast beef today. That'll
be good. But you'll eat fast. For any next alarm
you'll want to be ready.
From the Paul Harvey News
