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A Happy Recruit Fireman Chris Potter helped Ethan Gerwatowski gear up for a trial run. Kevin Dunning Portrait of a future firefighter. Firefighter Wives To paraphrase both Napoleon and Frederick the Great: Firefighters Fight Better On Pancakes. Learning to Escape You Get Low and crawl under the smoke and heat to escape. Soon to be Three Generations? Adrianna is considering becoming a firefighter like her father and grandfather. Firehose Practice Fire Chief Shad and Sparky I conspired with Sparky to sneak up on Shad so I could get this surprise shot. Thanks, Sparky! Firefighter Volunteers Needed It's hard to read the banner but it is a recruiting banner for the fire department.

We had our Sublette County Unified Fire Pancake Breakfast at the American Legion Park in Pinedale on Saturday. This was a free event and open to the public. There were fire truck rides, a fire hose competition, a firefighter dress up photo booth, and an interactive fire trailer to educate us about fire prevention and safety. There was a fire prevention booth, and Sparky the Fire Dog thrilled the kids.

Shad Cooper, our Sublette County Unified Fire Chief, still remembers his first ride in a fire truck as a kid. "Yep, I lived in Riverton and we had an event like this," he said. "I put on a fire helmet, took the ride in the truck, colored in a fireman coloring book, and now here I am all these years later, as the Fire Chief."

Fireman Clark Allred from Sweetwater County brought his Public Education trailer up to teach the kids a little about fire safety and how to escape a fire, including testing doors for heat before opening, filling the trailer with smoke, and while the smoke detector blared, giving the kids practice on how to Get Low under the smoke and heat and escape thru a window or door.

Volunteer firefighter, Tiara kept busy helping kids into a convoy of fire trucks for their ride around town with our volunteer firemen.

I went thru the food line and a flock of firefighter's wives filled my plate with hash browns, sausage, pancakes and cut fruit. They said they followed their husbands into the occupation, but based on the delicious meal I ate, I think an argument could be made that their participation is an incentive to join the department.

I really like the family-friendly hands-on aspect of this event for the kids and how the firefighters are all actively driving the trucks, coaching on safety, escape, fire hose training, filling balloons, doing the bbq...and every other event I may have forgotten to mention. This is the third or fourth year I have covered this event and it gets better every year. I hope it continues forever.
Apologies to those who's photo's didn't make the story. Sometimes I think I've got the shot...but don't.

Your photographer: Terry Allen txpartisan@gmail.com

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