Amherst firefighters hone their skills in collaborative training event
'Things like today are allowing us to get together, strengthen our camaraderie, hone our skills together so we're comfortable with the people next to us even if they're not from our home fire company,' said Getzville Fire Company Public Information Officer David Morales.
Town wide day drills are held every month to help build connection between fire companies in the community. Once a year, they participate in a drill to help them practice responding to a call and putting out the flames together.
'When we get a fire, especially dayside when we don't have a lot of firefighters around, our fire departments like to work together, so when we work together like this we really get to know each other and know our skills and this just hones in our skills,' said Main Transit Fire Department Captain Jack Leising.
'These drills like this allow firefighters to come together that they might not be familiar with, working with a different officer or a different firefighter next to you so that way you get there and you know, 'oh, I've seen that guy before, I know they know what they're doing,'' said Morales.
For anyone who is interested in becoming a volunteer firefighter, officials say they'll teach you the skills and provide the training.
'These are people who give their most valuable resource, which is their time,' said Morales. 'It's a very honorable thing, it a very beautiful thing, becoming a firefighter is one of the best things that I've ever done. I would recommend anybody to do it because they give you the skills.'
'It's a very good brotherhood that we've had throughout the years,' said Leising. 'Not to mention, just the sense of community that you get just by helping your community.'
For more information on how to become a volunteer, click here.
Hope Winter is a reporter and multimedia journalist who has been part of the News 4 team since 2021. See more of her work here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fast Company
3 hours ago
- Fast Company
The Eames House in L.A. is open again after closing during the fires
After closing for five months due to smoke damage from the Palisades Fire, the Eames House (Case Study House #8) in Los Angeles has reopened to visitors—now with a more determined mission to serve as a place of community. Nearly 7,000 buildings were destroyed in the Palisades Fire, and though the Eames House was spared, cleanup efforts have been intensive. A crew took about a week to wipe away flame retardant that had been dropped to slow the fire from advancing from the outside of the home. They also dug up the property's plantings beds so the soil could be replaced due to concerns about toxic materials. 'We were very fortunate,' says Lucia Atwood, the granddaughter of architects Charles and Ray Eames who built the Pacific Palisades home in 1949. The home is a model of resilience, but its stewards were also proactive. Atwood tells Fast Company interventions began in 2011 to better fire- and drought-proof the home, which is a National Historic Landmark and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Those efforts that took on greater urgency after the Getty Fire in 2019. 'At that point it became very clear that there were going to be an increasing number of of extremely damaging fires,' says Atwood, the former executive director of the Eames Foundation. The foundation has worked to harden the landscape, a process that included clearing brush and removing some of the more than 250 trees that were on the property. Subscribe to the Design latest innovations in design brought to you every weekday SIGN UP Reopening events this month with local leaders, neighbors, and fire survivors have turned the Eames House into an Eames home for the community, as is the case for patrons of the Palisades Library, which was destroyed in the fires. After offering the library the use of the property, including the home's studio, which is open to the public for the first time, for events like book clubs and sales, the head of the library got emotional, says Adrienne Luce, who was announced the Eames Foundation's first non-family member executive director in April. 'This place is for you,' Luce recalls telling the library's head, and she says she started to choke up. 'Being so close to the devastation actually is a wonderful opportunity to serve and support the local community and long-term community rebuilding efforts.' Reopening means 'really engaging and serving the local community,' Luce says.
Associated Press
4 hours ago
- Associated Press
Remembering Hulk Hogan: Iconic wrestler's life in photos
Iconic professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, has died at age 71. This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
CBS News
4 hours ago
- CBS News
CPS student's essay on youth violence chosen for national summit in Washington D.C.
A Chicago student's essay on youth violence landed her a trip to the nation's capital. Jade Lee, a student going into the 8th grade at CICS Prairie in Roseland, recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where she participated in the national "Do the Write Thing" summit. The annual event brings young people from across the country together with the goal of addressing the root causes of violence and finding solutions. Participants are selected through an essay contest. Jade ended up representing Chicago after her essay was chosen from more than 800 submitted by CPS students. "It (the summit) was really inspiring to me because I also got to hear the other youth voices and how they have experienced it (violence), and we also got to talk about how we can fix it as a community," said Lee. Jade's essay is written from the perspective of a fictional character named Samara, navigating the violence in her neighborhood. It explores the root causes of violence and the unique circumstances that leave young people feeling like violence is their only option. "I personally feel like I have a different, unique imagination, so when I was writing the story, I was thinking based off how I have experienced violence in my community of Roseland, and how my peers have experienced it, and how my mom has also experienced it when she was younger," said Lee. During their visit to Washington, D.C., Jade and her mother, Brittany Powell, met with students from other cities along with elected officials including Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. "One of the things that I took away from the whole summit was all of the youth said the same thing, like listen to us," said Powell, "We have something to say, our life is different from yours and, we want you to listen." Jade says she was inspired by the summit and wants to be part of the solution. She hopes to organize entrepreneurship and mentorship programs for kids like her to offer a space for community and connection. To read Jade's full essay, click here
