Last Friday, I spent time watching some very brave men.
The team of Warren County volunteer and Vicksburg firefighters spent the better part of Friday night and into Saturday morning battling a fire in the boiler room of Tyson Foods Inc.’s Warren County plant. To the average person watching them attack and battle that blaze, the collection of fire trucks with their red lights flashing and the maze of hoses snaking across the ground may have looked like mass confusion, but the whole activity was controlled by some very experienced and capable men and women.
In the 40 years I’ve been working as a journalist, I’ve had the pleasure of watching these men and women work under some of the most demanding conditions imaginable and do their jobs efficiently and very well, and the firefighters in Vicksburg and Warren County have impressed me with their ability and skill.
The volunteers are a special breed. These are men and women who answer the call to help someone and do it without pay. Their only satisfaction is knowing they helped a neighbor or even a stranger in need, whether it’s saving property or helping save life.
My first exposure to firefighters came in the late 70s in Baker, La., a small town of then about 12,000 people north of Baton Rouge with a paid/volunteer department. I was working for a small weekly newspaper and went to a house fire, where I met the chief, James “Goose” Carroll, a former Baton Rouge firefighter and instructor at LSU’s Firemen Training Academy.
My introduction to house fires came quick. Goose pulled me over and told me, “I want to show you something.” The next thing I knew, I was walking with him through the house as he pointed out hot spots and told me what firefighters were doing. Since then, I learned a good bit about firefighting, including covering Baker’s firefighters during training at LSU and spending time in a smoke room watching how smoke can fill a space.
Those early experiences have stuck with me over the years, and it’s increased my respect for the work firefighters, both paid and volunteer, do every time I go cover a fire.
I’ve had many opportunities to cover fires both in Vicksburg and Warren County in the almost six years I’ve been here, and one thing that amazes me is the teamwork and camaraderie at fires I see between the paid and volunteer departments, and between the different volunteer departments, with all of them working together.
That’s something I’ve not seen in some other areas where I’ve worked, where people have allowed politics and petty feelings to interfere with the job at hand.
It’s from my experience over the years, that I can say, after watching our firefighters in Warren County, is we are very fortunate to have these men and women.
And if you want to make a list of heroes, make sure you include them. They deserve it.
John Surratt is a reporter for The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at john.surratt@vicksburgpost.com.