Kenny Ormsby and Cameron Smith
eSomethin Staff
Why should you care about an informational meeting for becoming a firefighter?
Firefighting can be an amazing opportunity to meet new people, help them out, and just serve the community. Everyday, they get about an estimated 3,000 calls per year, an average of about 7-9 calls in a day.
Each day in this career can be slightly different, whether it be someone as simple as getting a cat from a tree, to stopping a huge fire across town; you could get a ton of experience from being a firefighter.
What happened during the meeting?
On January 12th, 2026, 10:35 AM at the Perrysburg High School, there was an optional meeting for students to learn about being a firefighter and EMT. In this session, participants could gain the knowledge of things such as what a firefighter does day to day, and how a fire station will typically operate.
Despite what many people may think, fires are actually not a very common occurrence in the Perrysburg/Waterville area.
“It’s very rare that we get a fire now. Technology is so advanced to prevent fires,” said Audrey Hendry, a Fire 2 EMT Basic with the Waterville Fire Department.
However, when there is a fire, the firefighters are very protected.
“You’ve got different layers. You’ve got, like, your outer barrier, [a moisture barrier], you’ve got your thermal barrier. There are three different [layers],” Hendry said.
Three layers of outfits doesn’t guarantee firefighters are safe, though. In the meeting, Hendry and fellow firefighter Brian Cox talked about how, despite so many layers, the suits are only flame resistant – not flame proof. This means that while a firefighter still has protection for a little bit from a fire, the outfit can start burning, and the SCBA masks they use can start melt on the firefighter’s face if the environment is hot enough.
Some complications mentioned from the melting masks are respiratory issues, lots and lots of burns, and more, according to Hendry. One tip she gave was pouring water on the mask to cool it down. Firefighters are trained that if the tips of your ears feel hot, it’s time to get out as soon as possible.
Near the beginning of the meeting, they stated that the weight of the full set of protective gear they wear, which is about 70-80 pounds, gets heavy.
On top of the gear’s weight, they typically will bring a tool or two into whatever situation they’re in, which when picked up, felt around 15-20 pounds. The tools showcased were an axe for chopping doors open, a pike to pry ceilings open to check for fires inside of the roof, a hose nozzle they took from the truck, to spray water and extinguish fires from afar, and finally a door wedge, which wedges doors open.
The speakers let students put on the gear. I put on the smaller set of gear and it doesn’t actually seem too hard to wear or walk around in, similar to snow pants and a winter coat. Obviously, wearing and moving around in the full set for as long as they work would be challenging, especially with the helmet weighing around five pounds.
The helmet sits on the top of the head with a chin strap. Hendry also keeps a metal door wedge which is about another .5 pounds, according to eastcoastrescuesolutions.com. The wedge stays in the strap on the side of her helmet, so if she ever needs to keep a door open or closed she has it where she can easily access it, wearing the full suit wouldn’t be easy for a newer member of a firefighting team. They trained to be conditioned and trained to wear it over longer periods of time.
According to Hendry, a part of the program is getting all the gear and packs on in a minute or less on regular standards, they prioritize getting the lower half of their body prepared first because it’s easier to put on a vest in the truck rather than pants.
They are usually “lucky to get their pants on, and then in the truck we are putting the rest of our gear put on” Hendry states.
Typically the firefighters will stay inside of the station to be prepared for any emergencies they have to respond to. They eat together, sleep together, and ride the trucks together; everything they do is one big group effort as a team. Because of this, you must be a really good team player to become a firefighter, not even including the rigorous 8 month training required to become one.
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- The Class of 2026 Senior Superlatives
- 2026 Rebrand: Viral social media trend sparks widespread resolution intents
- Firefighter informational meeting educates interested students
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