ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. – Summertime heat is heading our way and for most of us, we can head into the AC, but for first responders, their job continues no matter the weather.
Imagine walking into a building up in flames with multiple heavy layers in the peak of summer. Well, for firefighters, they don’t have to imagine it…it’s a part of the job.
“Our gear can melt, it’s just immense heat and then when it’s already hot outside, your body is already hot, you’re already sweating before you even go in… it’s kind of extreme,” Courtney Herron, Firefighter and EMT for Roanoke County said.
They are wearing over 70 pounds of gear and then on top of that, the summer heat and humidity can be up in the high 90′s. Those fires can get up to a thousand degrees.
“That’s hard for us to fathom — you think about a cake baking at 350 degrees and what that does to your hand if you were to reach in and grab that cake pan at 350 degrees so just double or triple that,” Brian Clingenpeel, community outreach coordinator for Roanoke County Fire & Rescue said.
Firefighters tell me the biggest piece of advice is to prepare and hydrate — and when they are actually fighting the fire, taking a step away to rehab from heat exhaustion is key.
“You just catch your breath, take off some of your gear that makes it extremely hot, and you hydrate, replenish, change out your air bottles if you need it and when you are ready to go back you are good to go,” Herron said.