Members of the Lubbock Fire Department spend one-third of their lifetime on shift at a fire station. There are three 24-hour shifts that rotate starting at 6 p.m., and when they are not being called out to the scene, the firefighters must go through different types of training.
“They will go over new procedures or a new way we might do something,” Cpt. Kevin Ivy said. “The more you train on it the better you are when it comes to that time because in the situations we run into we don’t have to sit there and read the manual on how to make this work.”
When the alarms go off and and an emergency arises, they must be ready to go at a moments notice. The calls can come at any point in time during the day, and the firefighters must be out the door and on the truck within a minute.
“So no matter what happens you pretty much just drop it and go,” Ivy said.
The firefighters work along side up to ten crew members per shift and live in close quarters during their shifts and they become part of an extended family.
“You become family with them,” Ivy said. “That is a great thing because when you go into a fire, when you go into a hazardous atmosphere you want to know that if something happens to you that they are coming after you.”
