who are your firefighters?
How much do you know about the firefighters that serve Pleasant Hill Goshen Fire & Rescue? Are they career employees? College students getting hands-on experience? Members of the community who leave their job or home to respond to the station when a pager goes off?
Are there firefighters on shift ready to respond to emergencies in Pleasant Hill, Goshen, and Jasper 24 hours a day 365 days a year?
For answers to these questions, watch this video showing an interview with Captain Moore and some of the C-Shift firefighters. He will show you what a normal staffing day looks like at Pleasant Hill Goshen Fire & Rescue and introduce you to what a typical firefighter in our organization looks like.
Firefighter / EMTs
In the fire service, Firefighter is more than just a member of the fire department – it is a rank. Firefighters are the ones who do the hands-on work on emergency scenes. From driving the fire engine, deploying hose lines, spraying water, and using power tools, Firefighters are typically the ones who perform the life and property saving tasks on a fire. The majority of our Firefighters are also trained and Oregon certified as some level of EMS provider. They provide lifesaving treatments on medical calls and assist the ambulance crews with patient care – up to and including riding in the back of the ambulance to provide additional assistance on critical patients.
If our organization was a grocery store, Firefighter/EMTs would be equivalent to the checkout clerks, stockers, cart processors, etc. They are the non-supervisory employees who do the work and make the whole business function.
100% of the Firefighter/EMTs at Pleasant Hill Goshen Fire & Rescue are volunteers.
Fire Officers
Fire Officers are first-line supervisors who ride on Fire Engines with a crew of Firefighter/EMTs. Our organization has many different ranks for Officers depending on qualifications and experience level. However, they all have one common job: supervise Firefighter/EMTs, keep them safe, make sure the job gets done, and give them the tools they need to succeed. The safety aspect of that is incredibly important because Fire and EMS scenes are inherently dangerous. Fire Officers are also responsible for making sure the Firefighter/EMTs that work under them continue to grow through continued training and learning. Fire Officers also take command of many types of incidents, from minor fender-bender vehicle accidents and medical calls, to entire fire scenes. All Pleasant Hill Goshen Fire & Rescue Officers are Oregon certified EMTs and have performed the job of Firefighter in the past. Only experienced individuals who have served as Firefighters, taken additional trainings and coursework, and developed their Fire & EMS skills are able to serve as Fire Officers.
To continue the grocery store analogy, Fire Officers are like a department supervisor. They are responsible for assigning work, evaluating performance, and they must be prepared and able to perform skills on emergency scenes at a moment’s notice.
The majority of the Fire Officers in good standing with Pleasant Hill Goshen Fire & Rescue are career employees. Volunteers are able to serve as Fire Officers, and in fact, the organization encourages this. However, becoming a Fire Officer requires years of experience and extensive training. Typically, our volunteers do not remain with the organization long enough to fulfill these requirements.
The Fire Chief
The Fire Chief is the Chief Executive of the organization. The role of the Fire Chief is to run the business of the organization, evaluate the performance of Fire Officers, provide information to the Board of Directors and complete tasks assigned by them, as well as serving as the Incident Commander for large emergencies.
In our grocery store analogy, the Fire Chief is like the General Manager. Like a General Manager, the Fire Chief works normal business hours, but also is essentially always on-call to deal with major incidents or other important situations that come up. Additionally, just like you sometimes see a grocery store manager working a check stand when the store is busy or employees call out sick, the Fire Chief often has to assist by running overlapping calls within the district, or to work when staffing is low.
The Fire Chief is a full time career employee.
Ready To Become A Firefighter Yourself?
We are always recruiting new Volunteer Firefighters!
Click the link below to learn more about joining our team!