Photo courtesy of Brian Bastinelli. BrianBastinelli.com
In my high school, in the office of a well-loved, lefty Jesuit priest, where all the lefty kids hung out at lunchtime, there was a poster on the wall with a picture of a firefighter, soldier, policeman and teacher under the caption, “We Say They’re Our Heroes, But We Pay Them Like Chumps.”
At the time, I didn’t know the pay scales of any profession, let alone emergency responders and members of the military. That was more the province of the weird kid who traded stocks in the library instead of going to lunch. Nonetheless, I liked the sentiment, and—without any supporting evidence, really—I absorbed it as one of my own. Somewhere, in their depraved chambers, I reasoned, members of the “Other Party” were whittling down the paychecks of people whose bravery they touted at parades.
This fall, in Harrisburg, the question of compensation for emergency personnel became a point of contention. There were the endless negotiations between the receiver and the firefighters’ union over benefits and pay, which, as of this writing, had still not been resolved. There were the departures, in September and October, respectively, of the deputy fire chief and fire chief, both of whom had been on the payroll for less than five years, and both of whom left with lifetime benefits for their families. And there were the eye-popping payouts for accumulated overtime, including the single, $19,000 paycheck paid to Acting Fire Chief Michael Horst in October, as reported in the Patriot-News.
In the midst of all this turmoil, TheBurg thought it might interest readers to see the department at the other end, from the perspective of the young people entering the profession. One reason for the high volume of overtime is that the department is understaffed: during the budget crisis, senior firefighters retired and weren’t replaced. Earlier this fall, the city requested applications to fill 14 open positions.
On Dec. 7 and Dec. 8, 54 applicants who passed the written exam moved on to the Candidate Physical Ability Test, or CPAT, which is essentially a 10-minute, pass-fail obstacle course for aspiring firefighters. The CPAT took place at the state Farm Show Complex, in a cavernous exposition hall with a cement floor and a livestock odor. The day before the test, TheBurg visited the complex for a demonstration. Our guides were the new acting chief, Brian Enterline, and two firefighter-EMTs, Nate Martin and Josh Winters.
For both Martin and Winters, fighting fires was a lifelong dream, not to mention a bit of a family business. Martin’s father was a volunteer fireman; Winters’ grandfather was a chief at a volunteer company in Quakertown, where his brother is now a battalion chief. They both wound up taking the CPAT three times, waiting for the city to go forward with its hiring process. (A candidate’s passing score expires after one year.)
“The nice thing about this test is, it’s backed by two national agencies, so there’s less controversy,” Enterline said, as Winters and Martin set up at the starting point of the exam. “Back in Altoona, they used to make you chop through a log with an axe. And the issue with that is, OK, I got an oak log, you got a pine log. The way things are laid out here, there’s consistencies through every station.”
Station 1: The Stair Climb
To simulate ascending a high-rise, candidate climbs on a StairMaster for 3 minutes and 20 seconds, wearing 75 pounds of weight representing the firefighter’s protective equipment and air pack.
Enterline: “High-rises are sprinklered, so your chances of survival in them are absolutely phenomenal. Your odds of dying in a high-rise building in Harrisburg are basically zero. I can’t say that for state buildings, because they’re not sprinklered. The state didn’t have to comply with our mandatory sprinkler ordinance that was enacted in the ‘80s.”
Martin: “You do three minutes on the stairwell with a 20-second warm-up. You can’t hold on to the handles. You can use them for balance if you feel like you’re gonna fall, but just to tap them. If you fall off, it’s a failure.”
Enterline: “We won’t make Winters go through the whole three minutes. You’ll get the idea.”
Martin: “I think we should, captain.”
Station 2: The Hose Drag
Candidate lifts one end of a fire hose over the shoulder and runs it 75 feet past a barrel, then heads right, takes a knee and gathers 50 feet of it, pulling fist over fist.
Winters: “Going around the barrel, you get some friction, which is the same as when you’re going through a house. Hose line can get caught on doorways, things like that.”
CPAT Manual, 2nd Edition: “Running beyond the marked path gives the candidate a mechanical advantage by decreasing the distance required to pull the hose by hand. This advantage may not be available on the fire ground.”
Station 3: The Equipment Carry
Candidate carries a chainsaw and a circular saw, about 30 pounds each, to a barrel 75 feet away and back.
Martin: “You can set the saws down to readjust your grip. If you drop the saws, that’s a failure.”
CPAT Manual, 2nd Edition: “Running with saws could cause injury if the candidate trips.”
Station 4: Ladder Raise/Ladder Extension
Candidate raises a 24-foot aluminum ladder, one rung at a time, until it rests stationary against a wall. Candidate then fully extends a second, secured ladder hand over hand, then collapses it again in a controlled fashion.
CPAT Manual, 2nd Edition: “Skipping rungs would give a taller candidate an advantage over a shorter candidate and is therefore not permitted.”
Station 5: Forcible Entry
To simulate opening a locked door or breaching a wall, candidate uses a sledgehammer to strike a measuring device until a buzzer sounds.
Martin: “Realistically, by the time you get here, you’re a little tired. I mean, this looks easy, but now you’re tired, you’re stressed out, and—it is easy, but it’s not easy, because you’re a little mentally stressed.”
Winters gives the device three quick whacks with the hammer, and something like a tiny police siren sounds.
Winters: “In the test you’ll be going nonstop. We’re stopping and talking.”
Station 6: Search Maze
Candidate crawls through a 64-foot tunnel, navigating obstacles.
Martin: “These guys have had plenty of time to learn this. As somebody watching them do it, our job is not to lead them through. We’re just staying behind them, because they should have learned it by now.”
CPAT Manual, 2nd Edition: “The candidate can return into the tunnel if they exit through the entrance. Failure to finish the event indicates a lack of confidence in dark or confined spaces.”
Station 7: Rescue
Candidate drags a 165-pound dummy around a barrel and back.
Enterline: “Obviously, the dummy drag is what it is. A dummy drag, to simulate pulling a victim out of a fire.”
Station 8: Ceiling Breach and Pull
Candidate uses a 6-foot pike to push a 60-pound hinged door up through the ceiling, then yank an 80-pound device downward, for several repetitions.
Enterline: “The push-pull simulator is for pushing through the ceiling and then pulling ceilings down, exposing hidden pockets of fire in houses.”
At the end of the demonstration, Enterline expressed a need to reach out to students in the Harrisburg School District. Among the applicants for the 14 positions, only three were residents of Harrisburg. “We need to get them invigorated to become firefighters in the next testing process,” he said.
He also reflected on the exodus of Harrisburg’s veteran firefighters. “We lost nearly all our senior staff through retirement, so we don’t have that senior guidance that we used to in the rank and file,” he said. “When I say ‘senior,’ I’m talking about folks that have been on the job 20, 25 years.”
When he joined the department, in 2000, there were still firefighters on the force from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Today’s most senior firefighter came on the job in 1985. “They’re all gone now because of the contract issues and all the unknowns.”
The evening after the test, I happened to run into a couple of firefighters at a holiday party. They had plenty to say about firefighting; a little about the politics of it, particularly the negotiations with the receiver’s team (“They don’t scare me. I run into burning buildings for a living”), but mostly about the art of fighting fires.
Everything in the field was changing, they told me. The manual of best practices was built on the combustion of wood, wool and cotton. But now things were made of petroleum products, and they burned faster and more intensely. One of them recommended a few websites, where he regularly looked for updates to techniques and technology.
Before we left the testing ground, Enterline had said something about the new hires being an “opportunity to rebuild and rebrand.” Perhaps what the department had lost in institutional knowledge, he said, it could make up for in new ideas.
“In my opinion, the way we’ve looked at the nine new guys we hired two years ago is, they’re our most important asset,” he said. “I mean, all of our employees are our most important asset. But these nine are a breath of fresh air.”
