BURN: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit

Last night, I made the drive down to Greenville, SC to watch a screening of Burn: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit. I have been following the film online for the last couple of years, and I have kept a close eye on it as funding for the film has continued to be a battle. The documentary follows the men and women of Detroit Fire and highlights the political battles, budget limitations, and personal lives of the firefighters. The film is about so much more than just the hard economic times that DFD is facing. It is a film that the general public, city councilmen, and firefighters across the country can all relate to and learn from. I am not a film critic, and do not claim to be...but below is a brief summary of what you will see in the film.

BURN highlights the deteriorating population of the "Motor City." At one time the population in Detroit was 1.8 million people, and to date the population has dropped to just 700,000. While it used to be a booming city full of jobs in the auto industry, it now has nearly 80,000 vacant structures. The city has plans to demolish nearly 3,000 of those structures each year, but on a daily basis it pushes the DFD to its full capacity. The city of Detroit averages 30 structure fires a day, and their staffing has dropped from 1,800 firefighters to just  around 900 firefighters today. They are fighting a losing battle with their apparatus, gear, and equipment being tested to the limit. The film does a great job of showcasing these issues.

Dave Parnell, retired-DFD FEO, was in Greenville last night. Short in stature, FEO Parnell is full of life and dedication to the brotherhood. He recently retired after being on the job for 33 years. In the film, you get to know Dave personally. He takes you inside of his life as you meet his family, his love for western movies, and most importantly, his love for the job. I briefly spoke with Parnell in the lobby before the film started. His face lightened up as I told him I had driven down from Tennessee. Later in the film, I learned why. He referenced a life long dream to move to Tennessee w/ his wife after retirement. As the film covers, Parnell recently lost his wife and he stated he has no plans to live anywhere except the house that they resided in. It was an honor to meet Parnell, and I even gave him one of our KFD Station 1 challenge coins (Check out my post here about NM Coin). Parnell also assured me he would deliver two coins to the Producers of the film who were unable to attend. He also did a Q&A session after the film. He stressed to all the firefighters in attendance that we need to come together to make a difference. He told us about a quote that he often refers to, "Together...we can make a difference."

BE SURE TO FOLLOW THIS BLOG ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE.

Brandon Milewski's story is one that will leave you fighting to hold back your tears. Milewski hired in the DFD at a young age of 20 years old, just as I did. After being on the job for 11 years, he was injured during a building collapse on August 13th, 2010. He sustained severe injuries that left him paralyzed from his chest down. The film covers his determination through the major changes in his life, strenuous therapy, and his road to recovery. Since viewing the film, I found a video from Detroit news that covers the story as well. In the follow-up story, he used a device that allowed him to walk again. The film draws you in with his story as he recalls the incident.


The BURN film still needs funding! The film was created after FF Walter Harris, a 17-year old veteran of Detroit Fire, was killed while fighting fire in a vacant structure. This is how the story inside of the DFD was discovered. The film is currently running a 20-city tour nationwide sponsored by MSA among other sponsors. They are hoping for a nationwide theater release prior to releasing the film on DVD. If you have a chance, go see it. If you have an extra dollar or two, donate. The proceeds from the film will go to the Leary Firefighters Foundation and will go back to Detroit Fire. I would like to thank Greenville Fire Chief Stephen Kovalcik, a Detroit native, for his time to get the screening in Greenville.

TX Eastman, Working Fire, and BURN!

Things have been a little busy lately, so I am trying to play catch up as far as the blog goes. I spent most of last week in Texas at the Eastman Chemical Corporate Fire School, and I'm still trying to get back in to the swing of things. We had a working fire on shift today, and am still working on finalizing plans to drive to Greenville, SC on Thursday to watch the BURN: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit screening. This post may be a little scattered, but I'm going to try my best.

Every year around October, Eastman Chemical company hosts a Corporate Fire School for their firefighters, ERT members, and a few municipal firefighters from the neighboring departments. This year, I was one of two firefighters from here in the "Model City" that was lucky enough to travel to Longview, Texas for three full days of classroom/hands-on training. Since we have an Eastman Chemical plant here, they typically send two of us with their crew down for the training. We respond to the plant to back up their department if they have to go out on a response. Typically, it only consists of us standing by at their fire station until they clear up, but occasionally we have to respond to emergencies within the plant.

The Texas Eastman is the host of the Corporate Fire School. We flew into Dallas-Fort Worth Airport last Sunday, and made the drive towards Louisiana to Longview, Texas. Longview has a slightly larger population than Kingsport, and staff a few more pieces of apparatus than us. Some of Texas A&M's fire classes are hosted at the TX Eastman where the large fire training props are. Throughout the week, we got to fight many types of liquid and gas fires. A few of the props they have on-site are a rail car project, a tank farm project, and a couple multi-story chemical complex projects. The staff on-site made us feel very welcome and were very knowledgeable. I definitely learned a lot while I was there, and I am pretty sure everyone in attendance would say the same. I also developed an appreciation for the types of emergencies they respond to. I have never been one that enjoys all the "glow worm haz-mat responses," but I definitely enjoyed learning new techniques that they use to fight the chemical fires. Several of the props even had pressure vessels that would even vent off until they were cooled down. The majority of the drills would consist of multiple fire crews working in a coordinated fashion to gain access to the exposed valves, so that the valves could be closed. A few photos below have been attached to give you a better idea of what I am attempting to explain.

 

 

 

Three firefighters from Longview Fire attended the class with us. Talk about BROTHERHOOD...these guys definitely know the term by heart. Lynn Smyers, Jimmy Lawrence, and Jon-Eric Johnson treated us as one of their own. We all shared stories and experiences with each other throughout the week, and compared similarities/differences between our departments. It seems that they have a great department that they are very proud of. They took us around to a few of their stations and let us meet some of their crews. Longview Fire runs out of 8 stations, and operate 3 trucks, 4 Medic units, and I believe 7 Engines. Several years ago, they started making all of their probies go to Paramedic school. Today, almost the entire department is trained to the medical certification level of Paramedic. I gave the three guys some of our challenge coins that were made by NM-Coin, and they returned the favor by hooking us up with a few of their own coins. (Check out my review of NM-COIN LLC here) Smyers, Lawrence, and Johnson treated us as one of their own, and it definitely made the trip! I look forward to keeping in touch with these guys, and if you are ever out their way...I'm sure they would gladly show you around. I wish we would have had more time to spend with them, but with class starting every morning at 7AM, we didn't have much free time. They even gave us a few of their shirts and I am going to be sending some of our IAFF Local 2270 shirts and coins in the mail.


Today is my middle shift of our series at work, and was also our first shift in our long sleeved badge shirts. Around 4PM today, we caught a working fire to break our newly pressed button-up uniforms in. It had been a fairly slow day, until the fire came in and it seemed to break loose afterwards. The fire was in Station 5's area, and they were busy responding on a medical call. This made the station I'm working at first in on the fire. The first arriving engine arrived on-scene w/ smoke showing. The attack crew went to work with an aggressive interior attack. The important thing is that everyone worked their tails off, and no one was injured. We wrapped the scene up within a few hours.

On Thursday, a few coworkers and myself are planning on making a short commute down to Greenville, SC for a screening of the documentary about Detroit Fire. If you haven't heard about the battles these guys have, I encourage you to do some research. The population in Detroit has been cut in half over the last several years, and they have a very high number of arson fires on a daily basis. I believe this year on the three days around Halloween, they responded to about 93 house fires. The film is called BURN: One Year on the Front Lines of the Battle to Save Detroit. Click the link and view the information on the film. I have also submitted for a screening here in the Tri-Cities, so hopefully we will see a local screening in the future. One of the things I am looking forward to most is a Q&A afterwards with the Producers and Detroit firefighters who are featured in the film. I have been following the progress of the film for the last couple years, and they are still working on funding to be able to release it nationwide.


BURN - Official Theatrical Trailer (2012) from BURN on Vimeo.

That's all for now,
Stay safe!