WATERVLIET ARSENAL, N.Y. (April 2016) -- Despite their well-known reputation for community service, firefighters typically do not come face-to-face with the public until tragedy strikes. Nevertheless, this sense of inevitability of tragedy is what the Arsenal's firefighters say challenges them to be better tomorrow than they are today.
"For the most part, thousands of people drive by our firehouse every week and probably don't give us a second thought," said John Whipple, the Arsenal's fire chief. "And so, it usually is not until they are having the worst day in their lives, when we come face-to-face with an employee or a member of the community."
Whipple explained that in a time of crisis, the Arsenal's firefighters need to have the best day of their lives. At first thought, that statement may sound insensitive, but what Whipple means is that all of his firefighters' hours of training, years of experience, and classroom study must come together at the right time and place to mitigate the pain and suffering someone is experiencing.
Although the Arsenal's firefighters have few emergencies that they respond to here, their lives are far from a life in Sleepy Hollow. Every day they train and when they aren't training, they are usually responding to a mutual aid call off post. In fiscal year 2015, the Arsenal firefighters responded to nearly 200 calls for support from outside of the Arsenal fence line.
Fire Captain Tim Cuilla said that when the alarm goes off in the firehouse the sense of tragedy that may await them not only raises their adrenaline level, it also motivates them to seek a higher level of performance from the last call that they responded to.
According to Cuilla, there is significant value to responding to mutual aid calls off post that transcend the immediate value to a resident or business owner.
"There is a tremendous training benefit to every call, even if the call is canceled en route," Cuilla said. "As soon as the call arrives, we go into a battle drill preparing equipment, recalling past experiences and then visualizing the lessons learned on the current situation, planning our actions, and communicating our availability and capability to outside organizations."
This type of battle drill would be the same process whether or not the call is canceled, Cuilla said. Each year, the Arsenal firefighters respond to more than 400 on- and off-post calls.
But as much as the Arsenal firefighters are integrated into the community, they believe they are somewhat different than a local community firefighter. Not better, just different.
This is not to take anything away from local first responders, because they do a wonderful job protecting the community and supporting the Arsenal when it needs assistance, but due to the nature of the Arsenal's mission and therefore, its infrastructure, it is important to be different.
"Because we do not have the daily call volume as community first responders, we have time to focus more on prevention versus response," said Firefighter Rob Sowle. "From managing a fire marshal program to conducting CPR training, a lot of our time is interacting with the workforce prior to an emergency in hopes that it will make us safer."
The other difference, or what Sowle calls an advantage, is that due to the heavy focus on prevention, his team has the luxury of inspecting every building, which provides Arsenal firefighters with a very good understanding of how each building is laid out.
Cuilla added, "Community firefighters cannot visit everyone's home in advance to map exits and to identify safety challenges that might preclude a rapid response. We can here and there isn't an Arsenal firefighter that doesn't know the layout of every one of the 72 buildings here."
Whipple said he is very pleased with the quality and professionalism of his small force. Every one of his firefighters are Emergency Medical Technician or EMT certified and most have more than 10-years' experience as a firefighter. But what he is most pleased with is something that is hard to measure.
"Not to overuse a former Army tagline, but my team truly believes in being all that they can be," Whipple said. "And that motivates them to train hard every day, to be better today than they were yesterday. Better tomorrow than they are today."
Today's Arsenal an Army-owned and operated manufacturing center and is relied upon the U.S. and foreign militaries to produce the most advanced, high-tech, high-powered weaponry for cannon, howitzer, and mortar systems. This National Historic Registered Landmark had $138 million in revenue in fiscal year 2015 and has an annual economic benefit to the local community in excess of $100 million.
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