Up Close: Brian Duddy

By Charity Corkey (Contact)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Brian Duddy, 33, has been a volunteer with the Leesburg Fire Company for five years. A native of Tucson, Ariz., Duddy moved to Leesburg in 2002 to work for America Online's Network Operations Center in Dulles.

Read our email interview with Duddy to hear his thoughts on the challenges of fighting fires and the fire house atmosphere.

Q: Tell us a little bit about what it's like to be a volunteer firefighter.

A: The range of things we respond to goes anywhere from someone not feeling well to someone's house going up in flames. There's nothing else like it, when you're on a call somewhere, you need some help and you hear those sirens coming through town. You know your brothers and sisters that you have trained with and bled with are coming. I get to work with some people who are truly outstanding and professional at what they do.

Q: What kind of training do you have to have?

A: The training requirements vary slightly from station to station in the county. When you join, you need to go through the County Fire program, which is going to get you Firefighter 1 and 2, Hazardous Materials Operations, EMS First Responder, CPR & AED.

In Leesburg, you also need our 40-hour in-house training. After you get out of fire school, in order to be released as a firefighter or "Black Hat," you also need to complete a company training burn where you're observed by the chief and other officers who make the final decision if you're ready or not. It's around 200 hours of training before you can actually be released.

Courtesy of Brian Duddy

Brian Duddy is a volunteer firefighter with the Leesburg Fire Department.

Q: How many hours a week do you work?

A: Generally I will do two, 12-hour overnight shifts a week. That can vary from week to week depending on a lot of things. Storms, fires, call volume. If we know we're going to have a busy night, we will almost always have extra people at the station. My time at the station weekly pales in comparison to some of the other guys. There are volunteers there who will do upwards of 200 hours a month.

Q: How do you think being a volunteer firefighter is different than being a full-time firefighter?

A: The biggest difference between the volunteers and LCFR staff is the amount of time spent in training. The paid staff is in recruit school for close to 30 weeks, five days a week. So, they have the time to dedicate to additional training that the volunteers don't get initially. It's just not feasible for someone who has another job to spend that amount of time initially training. I say initially because everything that the career staff get in recruit school as far as training goes, is also offered by the county to the volunteers at various points during the year.

Q: Why did you decide to volunteer your time in this way?

A: I've always had an interest in the fire service and being able to help people.

Q: Of the many calls that you have responded to, which is the most memorable?

A: Most memorable would be my first fire ever. Over in Tavistock Farms, came up over the hill and saw fire a few blocks over. That was my first time on a line flowing water on a fire.

Q: What is the most difficult fire you have fought, and what was the outcome?

A: I would say that the most physically draining one on me, along with the rest of my crew, was a recent fire we had over in River Creek. We pulled up in the engine and we had fire blowing out the roof of the house with reports of people trapped inside, which turned out to be false. It was a pretty large house with an enormous amount of fire on the top floor. One of the old sayings goes "Big Fire, Big Water."

Generally, you can handle most house fires with the hose you'll see hanging off the side of the engine, which is a 1-and-3/4 hand line, which can be handled by one person. Due to the amount of fire, I pulled our biggest line we had on the engine, which is a 2-and-1/2-inch attack line around the back of the house to try and get some water on the fire.

I came around the back of the house, which was also on fire, and there was a fence in the way. I kicked at it a few times and managed to get part of it knocked over so I could get the line in the backyard. Somebody else came around back and helped me get the rest of the fence out of the way. As I was running to the back with the hose on my shoulder, a coupling got hooked up on the fence somewhere and pulled my shoulder back pretty good. The other crews were pulling hose lines to the back at that time as well.

I flowed the 2-and-1/2 by myself for a bit. Most firefighters will tell you, flowing a 2-and-1/2 by yourself is no joke, especially if you hurt your shoulder. As far as the outcome of that fire, we actually saved most of the house other than the top floor. We had units from Sterling, Ashburn and Fairfax County there helping out. It's always a team effort.

Q: Have you ever been in a situation where you feared for your life or those of your fellow firefighters?

A: The fire we had on May 25 where six firefighters were burned is the biggest one for me where I feared that someone was going to die. I won't ever forget that day.

As far as one I felt I was directly in danger, was in February of 2007. It was probably 2 a.m. or so and we got dispatched for a house fire. As we were pulling out of the bay, dispatch came over the radio and said it was a house fire, with a vehicle into the house, with the driver of the vehicle trapped inside. We got on scene and didn't see anything in the front. My Lieutenant and myself ran around to the back of the house where we saw a car had driven all the way into the back of a house. There was a lot of smoke, but we clearly made out that the reverse lights on the car were on, and the engine was revving up as the driver was trying to back out of the house.

We went back around the front of the house and I pulled a line to the front door of the house. I opened the front door and there was smoke banked down to the floor. I put my mask on along with my lieutenant and we started to take the line downstairs.

By this time, the ladder truck, and a few other engines were on-scene. We made our way downstairs, as soon as we got to the basement, the driver put the car in drive and was trying to go forward right towards us. We quickly realized the smoke wasn't from a fire, but was from the exhaust of the car, and the dust from the car driving through half the house. I dropped the line, and myself along with several other firefighters were attempting to extricate the driver from the car. But he kept trying to move the car forward or backward directly endangering everyone that was there. Chief pulled us out of the house and the driver was eventually removed from the vehicle.

Q: Have you ever been injured when you've taken a call?

A: I have been known to injure my back on occasion. About two years ago I had a kitchen ceiling fall on my head during an apartment fire. That one hurt for awhile.

Q: What tips do you have for fire safety at home?

A: That's an easy one. Smoke detectors. We often go to calls where we will see smoke detectors disconnected sitting on a table, or even worse no detectors at all. Remember, a large majority of fatal fires occur from the hours of 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. If you're asleep and there's a fire, you may not know about it until its to late if you don't have working smoke detectors. Change the batteries, test them out and make sure they are working.

Q: Tell us a little bit about the atmosphere at the fire station and among your colleagues.

A: It's a great atmosphere. There's just about always something going on when you walk in. A typical night usually consists off getting your shift handoff from the outgoing career shift, anything that happened during the day etc. Apparatus checks to make sure everything working. Figure out assignments for the night as far as who is going to be on the engine or the truck. We have people from everywhere ranging from an actual "rocket scientist," police officers, computer guys, paid firefighters from other counties, construction guys. The jokes never stop.

Q: Firefighters are known to be good cooks. Is that true of your company? Who is the best cook?

A: Hmm, not so much on my crew. I would say if I had to choose the best cook in our house it would probably be Lt. Blaylock. He makes some pretty good chili. I'm not sure what's in it sometimes, but it tastes pretty good. Ali would be a close second as far as cooking goes. Trimpey can microwave a mean hot dog though.

Q: How do you balance your full-time job as an employee of an Internet service provider, and volunteering as a firefighter?

A: Sometimes it can be pretty hard to balance it (just ask my boss). It's difficult to be up all night at fire or a wreck or something and then be at work at 7 a.m. for 12 hours. But I make it work. My work is pretty understanding. Plus, you have plenty of volunteer firefighters that work at AOL, from Sterling, Ashburn, Leesburg, etc.

Q: Tell us something about yourself that would surprise your friends and colleagues.

A: I am a closet 80's music fan. I love Journey, Def Leppard, and Michael Jackson.

Brian also runs a blog called Becoming a Firefighter. Click here to read more from Brian.

Tagged: Fire Department, firefighters, Leesburg, Loudoun County Fire/Rescue, Up Close

Your Thoughts...

Are you happy that the school year is over?