Determined Spirit
One of the things I really admire about volunteer fire departments is their spirit and determination to make do with few resources. While the FIRE Grants have helped a good many departments across the country, there’s more need — and there always will be — particularly for those departments that can‘t quite compete with experienced grant writers.
If you want to see spirit and determination, you should get to know Monte Egherman. He is a retired battalion chief out of Peoria, Ariz., and assistant chief for Buckeye, Ariz. He also is the firefighter fitness and CPAT director for the Glendale Community College Fire Science Program and author of Fitness for Firefighters: Enduro-Strength Training. Former Phoenix Fire Chief Alan Brunacini wrote the book’s forward, and Bruno doesn‘t throw his endorsements around lightly.
During his career, Egherman has won numerous state and national competitions in power lifting and bodybuilding. He also is certified as a strength and conditioning specialist, public manager and fire officer. Egherman believes that firefighters are “industrial athletes” who need to “train the way they play.”
“You‘re buying into a good 35 years of fitness training,” Egherman told cadets in a fitness class. “Training never stops. It all still has to come down to working with turnout gear on, pulling hose and carrying heavy objects.”
Egherman‘s fitness class at the community college is for Fire Ops 1 and 2 students and designed to prepare them for CPAT. This isn‘t just another jumping-jack fitness program, either. Egherman designed the fitness program around firefighter tasks, using equipment and gear already in a fire station. I watched cadets with weighted vests run up and down the bleachers, squat and pull lengths of hose, and work on team-building by lifting and carrying an oversize tire from an ARFF vehicle.
Egherman says you don‘t need a lot of money to have a fitness program. “There‘s nothing here that any poor fire department couldn‘t do,” he said as he stowed the equipment in an old trailer under the stadium bleachers.
“You can‘t help anyone else if you don‘t take care of yourself first,” Egherman cautioned the class. It may be in five minutes, it maybe in five years, but if you don‘t keep up with the fitness training, that‘s how firefighters die,” he said. “It doesn‘t stop here. You‘ll never stop training.”
Keeping with the fitness program, many firefighters and paramedics who have trained in Egherman‘s Enduro-Strength system come back and help with the classes.
Imagine if all incoming firefighters and EMS personnel continued fitness training throughout their careers. What affect might that have on first-responder deaths — on or off duty?
