Firefighters Share With Community

It was an open house, not a careers day for kids.

But more than once firefighter Lisa Jones shared a secret about her occupation with the girls and boys checking out the Spokane Fire Department’s Station No. 9 on Sunday afternoon. “If I could do it, you could do it.”

Maybe that sank in. Maybe it didn’t.

“Do you get a badge?” asked one girl visiting the station at Bernard and 18th.

But the fire engine definitely made an impression. “Can I be the driver?” one breathless boy asked as four grade-school children clambered up into the front of the big red truck.

One kid imitated a siren.

“Everybody gets right out of your way,” Jones explained when asked what’s it’s like to ride in the engine. “It’s exciting.”

She helped a little girl with long blond hair try on a firefighter’s coat and helmet. The scene was worth a roll of film.

Some open house visitors toured the mobile Children’s Fire Safety House - a two-story teaching tool designed to show kids how to get out of a smoke-filled home. (“Stop, drop and roll” is the key concept.)

Others zeroed in on the cake and punch next to a table covered with safety brochures, 911 stickers and what have you.

“Thanks for coming to see Station 9,” a firefighter said to an elderly couple headed out.

“Well, actually, we had just come by to get our blood pressure checked, but thank you,” the woman replied.

Not long after that, a family of four from just down the street walked up. The older of two wide-eyed young boys handed firefighter Dale Chaney a plastic container of homemade jam. Then, with an appealing mixture of shyness and determination, the boy introduced the members of his family by name.

Attached to the jam was a handwritten note. Chaney had difficulty making it out. So the boys’ mother explained that it said the family appreciated the firefighters waving as they went by in their trucks.

Chaney nodded and smiled. “Hope we don’t wake you up at night,” he said.

The boys’ dad waved the comment away with one of those “Gedouddahere” gestures.

“We’re glad you’re here,” the dad said.

Standing there next to his smiling wife and two sweet-faced little boys, you kind of got the idea he really meant it.

, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits gatherings in the Inland Northwest.