Looking out from behind his grandma’s house, Senior Bryan Padgett watched as firefighters put out a wildfire someone had started. While observing the firefighters in action, Padgett was inspired to start a path to pursue firefighting, his uncle was an additional inspiration for Padgett because he used to be a firefighter. 

Padgett is currently a volunteer at East Montgomery County Fire Department Station,The process of becoming a firefighter starts by joining a fire academy that many departments have. He plans to join the academy once he graduates and turns 18 to earn a fire certification and EMT certification to become a probationary firefighter. 

“East county, where I’m at, has one (an academy) they do through a company called Fire Tactics. It’s like a twelve week program,” Padgett said. “You can get your certification at Lone Star through a fire certification course, you also need to have your EMT (certification) because half of our calls are medical calls.” 

As a volunteer at the fire department there’s only so much to do before entering the fire academy, according to Padgett.

“On the weeks that (there’s duty) I just go after school, stay until six and then go once on the weekends,” Padgett said. “I have to memorize where everythings on the truck, so if they need any rescue tools I have to be able to go to the truck and get it, I have to be able to change out air bottles, I know how to use the cascade machine which is what fills our air bottles.” 

Attending school and volunteering in firefighter duties isn’t hard to manage for Padgett due to the firefighter’s schedule having two working days a week, ten days a month. Firefighters work 48 hours straight each week and stay in the firehouse waiting to be called for duty. 

“I want to go all the way to become a captain and after captain, a battalion chief, they just watch over everyone,” he said. “That’s kind of where every firefighter would go if they pursued this.”

The ranks in a fire department are : Probationary Firefighter, Firefighter, Driver Engineer, Lieutenant, Captain, Battalion Chief, Assistant Chief, and Fire Chief.

“They’re still in the process of learning, like learning what that person does,” Padgett said. “We have a probationary firefighter and he’s out there, you know doing trainings like cutting roofs up and all that, and the other firefighters are watching them and making sure they do it right” 

Being a firefighter was something Padgett always thought of but before wanting to pursue a career in firefighting he wanted to become a mechanic.

“It seemed like a cooler job and you literally only have to work two days a week, I think the starting pay is $50,000 a year,” Padgett said.

He believes that having knowledge in mechanics will benefit his future career by working on fire engines and medical response vehicles because of how similar fire engines are to regular engines. 

“Firefighters only work two days a week so I could be a firefighter for those two days and then the other days I’m off I could do that as a hobby,” Padgett said. “A lot of firefighters have other jobs they do, like my captain Kyle, he has a hydroseeding business he does on his days off.”