FSN Visit To Station 11
Published: October 17, 2009
I have met a lot of people in my years through the fire service but none are better than the men and women of the fire service itself. Several months ago I moved my family to St. Augustine, Fl and settled into life here. For me that involves photographing the accidents and incidents that these men and women respond to everyday.
Station 11 sits on Shores Blvd. in St. Augustine Shores and is manned 24/7 by EMS and Fire personnel working 24 hour shifts with 48 hours off. Even though the county has cut the crews from 3 on the engine and 2 on the rescue to only 2 fire fighters on the engine and 2 on the rescue but even with the cuts these guys are fast out of the gate.
Tonight my wife and I were getting ready to take my son and head out for our evening walk around the neighborhood and decided we would stop in as my son has been going on about seeing the “Big Red Fire Truck” for weeks. When I got there, the doors where open as they are most of the time when the weather is good so we wandered in and found Fire Fighter Bryan Sumner in the bay.
He was quick to welcome us to the station and took my boy on a tour of the station and apparatus. Now I know from my 20 years in the fire service that often we (fire fighters I mean) give tours to school groups and others but in this case I was impressed by the fact that Fire Fighter Sumner really took the time out with no warning or direction from anybody and really made the little guys day.
All together we spent about a half hour at the station and Logan got to look around and “Drive” the truck while my wife and I chatted with Bryan. He had a great deal of knowledge about the department and it’s history and was happy to share it. I am glad we were able to stop this evening and hope that we will get to visit more of the stations as time goes on.
Thanks Bryan for taking the time to talk with us and make a little boy so happy!! It really shows the dedication and high level of fire fighter found here in St. Johns County.
For all of you that have not had any dealings with this department, St. Johns County Fire Rescue is made up of over 200 career fire fighters and EMS personnel working out of stations spread over the entire county. I have watched them work quite a few times as I worked to get just the right picture for that next article and have been very impressed!!
So if you ever get the chance, take a few minutes and stop in to your local station. Shake the hands of these brave men and women and get to know them a little. After all, they are there every single hour of every single day because they care about you and the rest of the people that live in this county.
It is a hard way to make a living sometimes but in the end is the most rewarding career out there.
For more images of these fire fighters and others in the fire service, take a trip over to http://www.southeastfirephoto.info/gallery
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Author: Christopher Kimball (31 Articles)
Christopher Kimball is a freelance photojournalist and fire service photographer. His work has been featured in 1st Responder News, The St. Augustine Record, Historic City News, Wesay.com, Demotix.com, FireEngineering.com and Firehouse.com. He is a 20 year veteran of the fire service having served as a fire fighter, Lt., Asst. Chief and EMT-I.
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