The Burgh's Bravest

Plattsburgh's F.D. keeps you safe from behind the scenes

Story and photos by Mike O'Keefe

Almost every day, people in Plattsburgh hear the faint, and hopefully not too close, sound of a fire truck whizzing through a local neighborhood. The Plattsburgh Fire Department, which is full-time, serves the city in a necessary way. Many times that they are called on, there are false alarms and routine drills taking place. However, it the other half of the calls which we depend on firefighters for every day, even if we do not fully realize it. 

Capitan Michael Edwards recalls a not-so-distant blaze in the bowels of Macdonough Hall, located on SUNY Plattsburgh's campus. "When we arrived at the scene there were flames shooting out two windows," Edwards says. "It got bad enough where all the glass in the peepholes on the floor melted."

The P.F.D. responds to roughly 800 fire calls every year. Out of those 800 calls, about 100 of those are confirmed structure fires; that is, a fire inside of a building, say a house, restaurant, or office. And out of those 100 fires, there are about four to six calls a year that involve a heavy fire, or a blaze that engulfs a good portion of a structure.

The P.F.D also has an ambulance corps, one that takes over 2,300 calls a year. "It doesn't matter, we are always steady here," Brian Guay, a EMT certified firefighter says. It takes a lot of resources, manpower, time, and effort to make Plattsburgh a safe town to live in. 

"It got bad enough where all the glass in the peepholes on the floor melted."

The city and its surrounding community depend on a County Mutual Aid System, which enables neighboring fire departments to aid one another when in need of assistance. "When we have the big blowouts, we have to have backup," says Todd Aley, who has been on the P.F.D. for the past 17 years.  "If [local communities] need us, they'll call us too." The local fleets of fire trucks depend on each other to put out the big blazes, and keep local residents safe.

The P.F.D. currently has six vehicles in it's fleet.  Two engines, used for pumping, containing, and dispersing water amongst fires, help the P.F.D. get water to the site. The 102-foot tower ladder assists firefighters with high and low angle rescue, as well as placing firefighters in high locations, such as on top of a burning building. And three ambulances complete not only the EMS corps, but the fire department as well.  Behind the wheel, and riding shotgun in these vehicles, is a story of it's own.

"It doesn't matter, we are always steady here."

Firefighters go through on-the-job, as well as official state mandated training. New firefighters go through a probationary period of one year, where the "probie" has to "prove his tactics," as Aley put it. 

Many of the men on the P.F.D are bonded not only through their jobs, but through family as well.  "Pretty much family, that's why I started," Aley says.  However, that is not to say that the P.F.D. is a "men's only" club.

"Family, thats why I started."

"Really, we do not have a lot of women who take the test," Aley says. "We've only actually had one in full uniform." The issue of having a woman in the house was really a non-issue for the men doing a job usually seen as a masculine one.  No matter who is doing the job, the P.F.D strives to keep the citizens of Plattsburgh safe. 

And although false alarms have gone down in recent years, it is still of concern to the men at the station. "It used to be nothing to go [on a false alarm] seven or eight times a day."  Many of these, according to Edwards, were because of the college. However, changing judicial policy at SUNY Plattsburgh has made it more of a non-issue. "It used to be a slap on the hand, now they expel them," Edwards says.

Although the population, as well as people willing to be firefighters, may be sparse, the importance of the people's safety is no less. The P.F.D. hopes to keep the area as safe as possible.

Do you feel like you are safe from a blaze in Plattsburgh?