 "Photo: Melanie B. Gray")
Ken Lundberg's shift begins at eight in the morning and ends 24 hours later. His shift can bring anything. A house fire. A medical emergency on the eighth floor of Stoke Hall. Whether it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter - it does not matter. His shift starts just the same. This is the life of a Durham firefighter.
The station is old and cramped, crowded between academic buildings and a power plant on the UNH campus. In a building the men say they have "outgrown," the workout room doubles as the conference room. The equipment that cannot be stored inside the station is placed in trailers outside and space has been borrowed from the Lee Fire Department for additional storage.
Though crowded, the building houses a fraternity of sorts; there is an immediate sense of brotherhood upon entering the fire station.
"We literally have to live together," said Lundberg, 34. "This is our house."
A professional firefighter of six years, Lundberg has been with the Durham Fire Department for the past four. Though a prankster, Lundberg is described by his brothers as sharp and thorough.
"Because we have to live together, we have to get along," said Lundberg, a man who always seems to be smiling. "It's a very important part. It's a way to deal with stress."
A former chef, Lundberg often prepares the nights' meals, eaten with everyone together around a long wooden table. A typical night might bring taco salad followed by peanut butter cup ice cream served out of mugs with the slogan "we serve to save" stamped on them. Nightly chores, including mopping the floors and doing the dishes, are split between the five men on duty, known as A Shift.
Spending so much time with each other brings the men together. Leaning back in a computer chair during a rare down moment, Lundberg said, "This is my second family."
Fellow firefighter Jimmy Brown shares the sentiment.
"When we have a bad day at work, our families really take the toll," he said. "You just saw a mother and a child in an accident, and it reminds you of your wife and child. You don't want to talk about [it]. We tend to joke about things, and people wonder why. It's just how we deal with it."
The sense of family extends outside the house as well.
Six years ago while Brown was working on his roof, he fell and broke his wrist. The next day, 15 firefighters arrived at his house to help him finish the roof.
"I didn't ask one of them to come," said Brown. "They all showed up because it's the brotherhood."
Lundberg said, "It just goes back and forth. We just do stuff without even thinking about it. Family is family."
Family Life
In order to serve the community, the men of the Durham Fire Department must give up countless hours of family time.
"The other half of us is at home right now," said Lundberg. "It gets lonely. People don't realize that every Christmas, every Easter, there's someone sitting around this table drinking coffee."
Despite the toll the job takes on family life, Lundberg loves it.
"Honest to God, it's the best job in the world," he said. "There's not a time when people aren't happy to see you. We show up because they call us."
Lundberg exemplifies two of the most important qualities that a firefighter can possess: curiosity and a concern for his fellow man.
"[We] get to help people, on their worst day, through any situation that they have in their life," he said. "Every minute is different. You never know what will happen next. There's no limit on what we will do to help."
Pausing, Lundberg said, "They call, we go. No questions asked."
The call came on Thursday night as the men were about to sit down to a dinner of steak tips and rice pilaf. A two-car, head-on collision at the intersection of Madbury Road and Route 4 left three people trapped. On scene, the men brought order to a chaotic situation.
"We make it work, as a team," said fireman Keith Leclair, who is also paramedic. "It's a team effort."
Every man has a specific job, and if one person slacks, it can cost someone his or her life.
Training
During down time, the firemen are studying, taking classes and reading about what fire departments across the United States are doing. But whether the training takes place in Durham or halfway across the country in Indiana, it takes money.
"Compare the difference between volunteer and full-time departments," Lundberg said. "Volunteer departments can put their money toward apparatuses, whereas career departments have to put it toward salary and benefits."
With a budget of $2.6 million last year, the Durham Fire Department is not unlike other stations of a similar size. Lundberg said that, more often than not, volunteer departments have newer tools and newer trucks because they do not have to pay salaries.
Technology is expensive. The new thermal-imaging camera the department purchased a year ago cost $18,000. The camera has the ability to see people in the midst of a fire. Cardiac monitors for the medics cost $20,000 apiece, and the department has three.
"You pay for the technology," said Brown. "People wonder why our operating costs are so high. This is why."
Despite the fact that the operating cost for the department is split between the town and the university, people wonder where all the money goes.
"A lot of people don't understand," said Lundberg. "They ask, 'Why do we have to pay for the ladder truck? We don't have any tall buildings.' The ladder truck is for Stoke, Christensen and Williamson. They don't understand that it's half the budget."
But with new technology comes new problems. Advances in equipment allow firefighters to get further into dangerous areas, which in turn exposes them to things that can cause even more harm. Firefighters of decades past would go into a fire and would be able to tell if they were getting in too far. Their ears were not protected and therefore could easily burn, which was an indication that they needed to get out.
"We are so protected now. We can go so far in that we don't know how hot it is," said Lundberg. "When we realize how hot it is, we don't know where we are and there's nothing we can do about it."
And while the gear protects them, it is not completely fireproof.
"It will burn," he said.
While there have been tremendous gains made in technology, on average 100 firefighters still die in the line of duty per year.
"One hundred is way too many," Lundberg said.
For A Shift, however, the night is calm. When training is complete and the dishes are done, the five men put their feet up for a few minutes before making their bunks and crawling into bed, prepared to jump up the instant the alarm sounds. Lundberg describes himself and his fellow brothers as jacks-of-all-trades.
"We can do anything at any moment," said Lundberg.
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