The smoke is so thick that the firefighters can barely see three inches in front of them – their thickly-gloved hands guide them along the walls. A masked firefighter leads the pack through the darkness using a thermal imager – an addition to their arsenal representing a new breed of rescuer.

However, the house isn’t really on fire. The men of the Station 2 firehouse, 132 Welch Ave., are navigating through burning castor oil – commonly used in fog machines – to complete their annual breathing apparatus refresher course in a simulated burn.

Every year, they go to “the pits” of the Fire Service Institute hidden behind the train tracks northeast of campus to partake in simulated fires and dark mazes, to stay current with their breather tank technology as required by the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

This is not the only training exercise required of fire departments in Iowa, however. Lt. Doug Wierson, who works the third shift at Station 2, describes a much different firefighter than the ones seen on television or in the movies.

When the men aren’t answering an alarm during their 24-hour shift, they study procedures, train and keep up with their fitness in an in-house weight room.

“During the week, we usually have structure training . and then the other days, we’ll do competent level training or we may watch a video and discuss it, or go out and do some hands-on training or preplan a building,” Wierson said.

“We do public education as far as going out and instructing on how to use fire extinguishers.”

A second home

During a 24-hour shift – one of three shifts that will be on call every three days – between the hours of 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., the men are under contract to use the time toward some level of education, whether it be an obstacle course or independently taking fire sciences courses at Des Moines Area Community College. But the work doesn’t stop there. The men compare living at the station to having a second home.

Wierson said after 4 p.m. there is still plenty of housework to do – a sharp contrast to common perception of the adrenaline-fed, male-dominated profession.

“We are our own housekeepers – we don’t have people that come in,” he said. “The place has to be vacuumed on a daily basis, the garbage has to be taken out.”

Just as much as they clean their quarters, the fire trucks – an engine, a rescue truck and a haz-mat truck – receive just as much, if not more, attention.

“Each day of the week we have a different process,” Wierson said. “Mondays, we clean the truck room floor; Tuesdays, we do compartments [in the trucks]; . Thursdays, we do ladders; Fridays, we [clean] undercarriages [of the trucks]; Saturdays, we take everything off the rigs and test them and make sure they’re working properly.”

Everything in the garage – or the engine room – is cleaned and prepped meticulously in case of an emergency. It is common practice for the men to clean the trucks every time they are taken out. Near the door connecting to the living quarters, the shift’s fire suits hang from black metal stands, ready to be used at any moment. In fact, it would be hard to search the trucks and the garage and find anything out of place.

A tight camaraderie

Wierson, now one of the senior members of the Ames Fire Department, didn’t believe when he entered the department that he would be where he is now and still enjoy it.

“I was born and raised [in Ames] and it was an opportunity to do something I wanted to do. I knew a lot of guys that were on the department and I just liked the process of it,” he said. “Honestly, coming into it, I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I do. When I started off, it was a job. It was something that gave me the paycheck, but now it’s got a little bit more of a feeling like I’ve accomplished something or helped somebody.”

Wierson said his main attraction toward the job is the camaraderie formed with his men. However, just as quick as the men create bonds within the close confines of the station, the department rotates crews annually.

“We rotate shifts every year and the whole idea behind it is to kind of balance the experience and give all of us better knowledge of the city. You get some complacency with calls because you’ve had this before or I’ve done that – it’s no big deal,” he said. “With complacency, a lot of times we’ve read about injuries or fire death because most of the time you were doing something you probably shouldn’t have been doing.”

Wierson said every time he is moved, he is satisfied with the mix, and this year was no exception. Steve Buser, a firefighter on Wierson’s shift, is also satisfied with Ames because of the crews and the department he works for.

“I was working Christmas Eve and I must’ve been on a little over a month. I was shopping over at Fareway and I blacked out, hit my head, had a seizure and wasn’t real sure how things were going to pan out,” Buser said. “The department was behind me 100 percent and the city also, and I was on light duty for six months. Probably had I been anywhere else, they probably would’ve just cut me loose and said, ‘see ya.'”

Although doctors were never really sure about what caused the black out, the coffee he drank during his commute between Ames and Iowa City was a factor. He finally chose to settle in Ames.

He attributes much of the support he received to working in Ames’ small and close-knit atmosphere. Had he been in a larger city with more people looking for a job, he most likely would not have been given leeway.

A different type of firefighter

The job of a firefighter in a metropolis like Chicago differs greatly from the job of a firefighter in a small town like Ames. A large, metropolitan environment filled with high rises makes firefighting a higher-impact occupation. In Ames, most of the calls are medical emergencies and firefighters such as Buser, who have First Responder training at minimum, are called out whenever an ambulance responds to a situation.

Buser said being in a smaller town makes his job more ideal for his situation.

“I’m not a young guy anymore. If I were maybe 20 years younger, I might have been like a lot of the younger guys and think, ‘I want to go someplace where they have a lot of calls, see a lot of action, do a lot of things,'” he said. “But it’s not for me anymore. I have a wife and family and I don’t want to uproot my family again after I’ve already done it once to come here. I like Ames because it is a nice, clean community.”

Buser chooses the quieter life, comparatively speaking, which seems to be a contradiction to his chosen profession. Yet it took a quick decision situation for him to realize he wanted to spend his days serving the community.

“I was dating a girl before I met my wife – her father had a heart attack, and I happened to be there when it happened,” he recalls. “I remembered CPR from when I was in high school, so me and her brother started working on their father. Unfortunately, we were not able to resuscitate him, but I stayed cool, calm, collected [and] tried to keep the family calm.”

A year after the incident, he joined a fire department in Iowa City with his brother. The experience with his girlfriend’s father motivated Buser to pursue emergency medical technician certifications so he could go on all medical calls and has been a responder ever since.

When Wierson’s and Buser’s shift ends 24 hours later at 7 p.m., the rotation starts again with shift one and Lt. Michael Bryant arrives with his crew. The different shifts don’t see much of each other, with only a small overlap in-between. Bryant said one day on and two days off hinders some of the outside relationships between shifts and even within shifts.

Much like Wierson, firefighting was an opportunity for Bryant to take his life in a different direction, one where more money could be made.

“There was kind of a downturn in the economy in the ’80s there for a while. I was working for a small family company where basically I wasn’t going to go any higher,” Bryant said.

The lawn care company he had been working with for seven years was no longer interesting, and he wanted “to do something different for somebody different.” However, the 1978 ISU alumnus didn’t have to look far for what would become his life’s profession.

Facing new challenges every day

Some admit to being attracted by the intensity and ever-morphing challenges of the job. For Bryant, benefits and insurance were the main attraction. The benefits for retirement and security were a good alternative to what he perceived to be a dead-end job. Now, Campustown presents different challenges for him every day.

“Every time 911 has a medical-type call, we respond. It could be anything from a car accident with injuries to difficulty breathing to someone who falls down on the ice,” Bryant said.

For all automobile accidents that the firefighters respond to, Station 2 is equipped with the hydraulic-powered “Jaws of Life” – one of the few things that makes their responding units invaluable in multiple types of emergencies, including someone being trapped to a construction site accident.

“It could be as minor as a dislocated arm or a sprained ankle playing softball,” he said.

Like Buser, Bryant feels Ames is most suited to his taste as a firefighter instead of responding to calls in larger cities where the source of danger may be uncertain.

“Personally, I probably would not have chosen to be a firefighter in a bigger city. I like Ames because we don’t have a lot of old, dilapidated buildings or things we like to consider fire hazards. And we have a real good code enforcement – we have a lot of sprinkler systems and alarm systems for early detection,” he said. “In places like Chicago and Detroit, where they shoot at firefighters and create hazards for them, [firefighters] aren’t as well-perceived and accepted. I probably would not choose this profession [if I lived there].”

Bryant said Ames is a lot more accepting and welcoming atmosphere, which helps to make firefighting more enjoyable. When asked about their last call involving a large fire, the men need time to recollect their memories and their opinions still differ – a clear sign of fire prevention that pleases the crew.

The close proximity of Station 2 creates a tight-knit group; one that Bryant said that creates trust, which is imperative in emergency situations.

“For the most part, we spend more time with each other than we do with our own families because we are here for 24 hours at a time,” Bryant said. “There is an occasional difference in opinion, but for the most part if someone’s having a bad day, we just leave them alone.”

The crews of Station 2 try to be as close with the community as they are with each other. Everything boils down to a community of men who risk their necks for the community and each other.

The men of Station 2 are a new type of firefighter – one who trains rigorously. Even with all the time spent perfecting their trade, the firefighters are able to sit and laugh with – and sometimes at – each other.