Your heart rate spikes when you enter the building for the first time. Sure, the instructors tell you that the smoke is non-toxic and there isn’t a real fire in there – but the bunker gear and the mask on your face make it a little too real – especially when you’ve never fought a fire before.
It’s dark inside the building, but I can see the inside of my oxygen mask thanks to some indicator lights I think are on my gear. They blink in red, green, and yellow.
My eyes adjust, but not much. I hear Niceville City Manager David Deitch, my battle buddy today, right in front of me, yelling – something? I don’t know what—everything is muffled.
A pressurized burst of air keeps hitting me in the face. I must’ve put my mask on wrong. Not the most comforting thing that could’ve happened to me.
The temperature in the building is not much higher than the 60º outside – but I’m still dripping with sweat from the thick bunker gear designed to prevent my burning to death. All I can think about is how hot these quilted, insulated, and fire-retardant jackets and pants could be in July with a real fire blazing around me.
I’m on my hands and knees following the fire hose to the fire. Deitch is on the nozzle. My head, protected by my fire helmet, runs into his oxygen tank with an empty metallic thud. At least I think it’s his oxygen tank – all I can see is a glow-in-the-dark square sticker attached to whatever I just head butted.
I feel someone grab the back of my bunker gear—it’s our training officer, Niceville Fire Department Battalion Chief Chris Russano. He points me in the right direction. I tell him I can’t see anything and that my oxygen mask isn’t on right.
He sends me back the way I came to get it fixed.
I exit the building the way I came in. I’m still drenched in sweat and feeling a little sheepish. Firefighter Michael Bergstrom fixes my mask—I had the back webbing on like a yarmulke instead of on the back of my skull—and ships me back in.
Back on my hands and knees, my heart rate stabilizes a bit, and I keep moving—it’s only after we get back out of the building that I realize I never put my fire-resistant gloves back on. Probably something I would’ve been alerted to by massive first-degree burns in a real fire.
After the exercise, or evolution, Deitch, Russano, and I regroup outside the building. I feel more than a little foolish. I couldn’t breathe, I left my battle buddy, and I burned my hands off, all in the space of about two minutes.
BC Russano and I tap knuckles while he tells me I did a great job. My ego desperately wants to believe him.
Firefighting is hard work.
I ended up in the burn building on Northwest Florida State College’s Campus thanks to a media day the Niceville Fire Department hosted to help people like me—and the city’s elected officials —understand what firefighting work is like. It was also a great way for the department to manage expectations for future budget requests.
While the group was able to use firehoses, perform CPR, and use the bucket truck and the Jaws of Life, the most instructive part of the day took place in a classroom-sized room in the heart of the firehouse.
We discussed the Niceville Fire Department’s current capabilities and future plans.
Battalion Chief Russano mentioned it out in the field, but Chief Kukulus drove it home. There are a maximum of five firefighters on a shift at any given time to respond to fire emergencies or, far more likely, medical calls.
Fully staffed, the department has a fire truck that carries three firefighters to a scene. Another vehicle with two firefighters serves as the quick-response crew for heart attacks and other medical emergencies.
Chief Kukulus says that about 80% of calls the department responds to are medical.
But while a fully staffed shift could have five firefighters on, they have a nasty habit of taking breaks, called vacations, every once in a while. Even more disturbing, firefighters also want to get better at their jobs. So, they take classes to become paramedics so they can provide lifesaving care to Niceville’s residents.
Sarcasm aside, it means that each shift doesn’t always have a full complement on board to address situations.
In addition, the Niceville Fire Department has made it its mission to recruit and retain more paramedics to ensure a higher level of service for residents. Currently, along the 98 corridor in Walton, Okaloosa, and Santa Rosa Counties, Niceville, Valparaiso, and East Niceville fire departments are the only departments without ALS (advanced life support) services.
Niceville had “two-and-a-half” paramedics on staff, according to department leaders. The department had gone through the expense and staffing woes to put a third through paramedic school. Weeks after their graduation, the newly minted paramedic gave their notice: they were leaving for another department that paid more.
Ultimately, retention and staffing are a numbers-and-policy game, according to Kukulus. So long as the department pays less than other agencies and funds itself at a lower level than its competitors in Bay and Walton Counties, the department will continue to have issues.
To work the situation as a stopgap, the department hopes to hire paramedics who want to be firefighters, as the firefighter course is much shorter, and backfill their way into becoming an ALS Department.
Another siren blares on John Sims Parkway in front of the Mid Bay News office.
I look out the window and, of course, it’s a red fire truck. This time, the truck heads across the street – as it does several times a month – to the Twin Cities Pavilion Assisted Living Facility. Soon after, an Okaloosa EMS Ambulance follows.
It makes me wonder – why does the City send a fire truck at all? I mean – there is an ambulance station, not a couple of hundred feet from the Pavilion.
That’s when I realize—if there was an ambulance at its station—there’s no way the department would have made it sooner than EMS; they have a much longer drive.
It’s the main reason Chief Kukulus wants pursue becoming an ALS department. County EMS has a 1,000-square-mile responsibility—and their staffing numbers require Niceville to keep people stable on scene for longer periods. It means residents of the city will have a better chance of survival if Niceville FD has paramedics on staff to keep them stable until transportation arrives.
On occasion, they really get desperate,” Kukulus said. “Otherwise, they’re calling Santa Rosa County to come help, or South Walton, or Walton County; they’ll send ambulances.” But you can imagine how long that’s going to be to get those guys over here driving. That’s why it’s important for us to then have paramedics and ALS, if nothing else, even if I can’t get an ambulance here in time, if we have a paramedic who can do a lot of those treatments that govern, stabilize the patient and just hang on to them for the 45 minutes, they can be doing a lot of things while we’re waiting on that ambulance.”
We reached out to Okaloosa EMS to understand the situation. Public Safety Director Patrick Maddox told us. “Our shifts are staggered to provide the greatest coverage during data-driven times of need,” Maddox said. He noted the department will run 12 ambulances during the day and seven on overnight shifts, barring callouts.
Two ambulances are stationed in the Niceville area, and Maddox says they meet the response times required for accreditation standards.
Then comes the unpleasantness that surrounds the Valparaiso Fire Department.
Kukulus describes it as “Its own headache.”
Aside from some of the in-house issues they’ve muddled through so far this year, Niceville has also taken them off their run cards. Run cards, to the layman, are plans to request aid from another department in the event of a large emergency. For example, the National Fire Protection Association(NFPA) recommends that, for a residential house fire, a minimum of 17 firefighters be on scene to fight it safely and effectively. Well, no single fire department in the area has 17 fire fighters on shift at once. That means departments need to rely on mutual aid to put out a fire safely—and that means using run cards to plan responses.
“We’re having issues with Val-p because of what they’ve done [creating their own department]” said Chief Kukulus as he explained the situation.”
“Imagine,” said Councilman Doug Stauffer in response with a smattering of sarcasm.
“So we’ve taken them off our run cards,” Kukulus said, “They continue to have staffing struggles there, but I hope they can get it together in the future. We will work together again, train together, and get them back. But, realistically, they only affect this little portion of Niceville anyway.”
Luckily, Kukulus explained in his presentation that the Niceville Fire Department has positive relationships with East Niceville, North Bay and Eglin Fire Departments. He cited the turnover in chiefs in the area as bringing in some new blood, allowing new partnerships.
It’s what allowed that media day to take place, “We work very closely with [East Niceville] in fact,” Kukulus said, “while we’re doing this [media day], they’re taking our calls for us.” He added that North Bay was covering part of Niceville while the media day was taking place as well.
Chief Kukulus makes it clear—he’s not developing the department’s long-term strategy alone. While he will provide the decades of experience in the fire service he has, it’ll be the city council and ultimately the voters who’ll make those decisions.
Whether they’re eating lunch at 1 pm or sleeping soundly at 1 am, the firefighters at Niceville’s Station 21 have about 80 seconds to hear the shrieking tones for help to go off in the firehouse and be in their truck on their way to an emergency.
Add in the time it takes to get through dispatch—typically about a minute—and it takes about eight minutes to get to your house to answer a fire or medical call.
Currently, that means the city of Niceville can reach roughly a third of its area within the recommended eight-minute window.
Places like Deer Moss Creek are way outside of that response window – for now. While the chief says the subdivision’s population does not yet merit a full fire station, it will soon. Deer Moss Creek’s growth projections estimate that the neighborhood will increase the city’s total population by 50% in the next decade, adding another 8,500 people.
In the meantime, relationships with the East Niceville Fire District, which has a firehouse closer to the subdivision, and the North Bay Fire Control District help to reduce those response times through mutual aid.
“We all love this city. We’re all doing this for the people that we work for, right?” Kukulus said, “I came out of retirement because I got a passion for this job, and I wanted to see this place move on and do great things. I know every one of you is not here for the paycheck that you get from being a council member. So, you know, we’re all giving back to our community this way. And realistically, you may not consider yourselves firefighters, but after today, you’ll be a little bit of one, and you’ll have a lot of say and control over how things go for us. Right? Those policy decisions you set for us and the direction you give us are integral to what ultimately gets delivered at the hands of the firefighters.”
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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