October 17, 2004 in City

Firefighters turn up the heat with their hunky calendar

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Colin Mulvany photo

Jason Cook (Mr. April), left, and Randy Edwards (Mr. June), sign this year’s 2005 Washington State Firefighter Calendar Friday in the lingerie department at Nordstrom in downtown Spokane. Proceeds from the sale of the $13.95 calendars benefit the Washington State Council of Firefighters Burn Foundation.
(Full-size photo)

How sizzling hot are the hunky battalion stallions featured in the newly released 2005 Washington State Firefighters calendar?

Hey, don’t look at me. I’m a heterosexual male.

How would I know?

But the woman standing next to me near the main floor escalator in Spokane’s downtown Nordstrom department store has a pretty strong opinion.

“I’d set my house on fire if they were gonna show up,” she says of calendar dudes Rich “Hawkeye” Couden (Mr. March) and Ryan Provencher (Mr. June) who are seated at a nearby table.

Arson hot. Impressive.

I have come to Nordstrom on this Friday afternoon to check out the firefighter pinups who are making a personal appearance in the women’s shoe and lingerie sections.

After analyzing the situation a few moments, however, it’s pretty obvious that I have been burned by the old bait and switch.

In the complimentary calendar that showed up at the newspaper, nearly all of the firefighters appear in a state of – anatomically speaking – half-nekkidness. That is, to say, the brawny specimens are shirtless, oiled and mostly devoid of chest hair.

You’d think professional flame eaters would have more sense than to slather themselves with flammable petroleum byproducts. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that the bruisers who are here to hawk calendars and sign autographs are as covered up as Quakers in church.

Apparently there will be no chest-baring allowed in Nordstrom. I can’t even spot one uncovered mannequin.

Oh, well, at least it’s for a worthy cause.

All proceeds from sales of the $13.95 calendar (which can be purchased in most major bookstores) go to the Washington State Council of Firefighters Burn Foundation. That has amounted to some $250,000 a year, says Rod Heivilin, a retired firefighter and the foundation’s executive director.

That’s all great. But I am dismayed to discover that not one Spokane-area firefighter is included in this so-called Washington calendar.

Once again, we residents of the Ingrown Empire have been snubbed like a homely girl at a high school mixer.

What? Are our homegrown smoke eaters too Flabio to be Fabio?

“Basically, nobody from over here applied,” explains Heivilin.

Being in the calendar, he explains, calls for 60 to 80 personal appearances a year. And since most of those appearances happen on the West Side of the state, it pretty much rules out a Spokane presence.

Besides, this calendar is the 10th anniversary “best of” edition. Only firefighters who had appeared in previous calendars were eligible.

We can take some satisfaction, I suppose, from the fact that three of the firefighters who came to Nordstrom are Washington State University grads.

This, however, is not surprising. What with the mysterious car fires and the occasional drunken riot-induced Dumpster blaze, Pullman seems like an ideal conflagration-battling training ground.

These firefighters do have their fans. During my stay here, sales are slow but steady.

Two college students, Cassie Lemke and friend Joline Holm, buy a calendar although they claim it is not for personal use. It is, they say, a birthday present for a friend who “has an addiction for firefighters.”

Another young woman buys three “for my two best friends and my sister.”

I don’t know what the big deal is.

I mean, what do these firefighters have that a hardened columnist like me doesn’t have?

Besides the washboard abs, bulging biceps and pecs of steel, that is.

Personally, I believe women find brains a lot sexier than brawn.

I’m betting a Hunks of Newsprint calendar, featuring some of Washington’s most articulate journalists, would sell just as well as Firefighters 2005.

Who wouldn’t want an open-shirt glossy photograph of me adorning a living room wall?

The caption could read:

“Mr. April is a 20-year columnist who began losing his hair in college and by now has pretty much finished the job. Turn-offs are nit-picking editors, deadlines and death threats from readers. Turn-ons include Hostess products, Gretsch guitars and subject-verb agreement.”

Line up, ladies. I’m ready to light your fire.

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