Retiring Anchorage Battalion Chief Recalls Old Days, Passes on Advice

April 02--Back when Gary Bullock was a young Anchorage firefighter, they smoked anywhere they wanted in the firehouses, even the dorm beds. New recruits still on probation got to empty the ashtrays.

Tolerances for risk were different then, he says. Many dangers weren't even recognized.

In training drills, firefighters would ride the ladder tip from its bedded home on the fire truck up to its fully extended vertical position, 100 feet into the sky. They zoomed up as fast as possible to prepare for a major fire on a tall building downtown.

Firefighters trained in old railroad cars behind Station 3 in Airport Heights, a couple hundred feet from the old city dump. The station window had to be kept closed in summer "to keep the stink outside," Bullock said.

Bullock, 54, is an old-timer among firefighters. His last 24-hour shift ends Monday morning. He put in almost 33 years with the Anchorage Fire Department and another four as an Air Force firefighter. He's leaving as a battalion chief, one of the guys who drives a red and white Chevy Suburban to fires and manages the crews. He's the last Anchorage Bat Chief to be part of the International Association of Fire Fighters union.

In a long retirement email to hundreds of friends and colleagues, and in an interview, Bullock shared the story of his decades on the line and as an officer. His goodbye note is part nostalgia, part advice, part a study of the profession's evolution to one where safety and care of firefighters is a top priority and dangers are better understood.

He said he particularly wanted new firefighters to know what they missed, what they've gained, and what to look out for. Anchorage has about 300 firefighters and officers, including 50 or so hired in the last year.

"Pay attention all the time," warned Bullock, a firefighter instructor for decades. "It's the 'routine' operation that will catch you off-guard. Continually evaluate the situations you are exposed to: question fire progress, building integrity, and what is happening around you."

Fire Chief Mark Hall called him a mentor to many and a great asset.

"He has been witness to change in the fire service and strongly urged that all firefighters use the safety equipment issued, to insure that 'everyone goes home,' " Hall said in an email. "He has earned his retirement and I hope it is long and fruitful for him."

Bullock didn't share any rowdy stories, but hinted at some. In the old days, he wrote, firefighters and officers would end their shift at 9 a.m. and head to the Polar Bar for breakfast and drinks "with an emphasis on the drinks."

Bullock is a third-generation firefighter who still carries his father's brass wrench. Firefighting is what he's done since he was 18. He made $9.09 an hour as a new Anchorage recruit in 1979. His ending pay is four times that.

It's a coveted union job but one that wears on men and women. Most retire when they can, after 20 or 25 years, depending on when they started. Their bodies break down. They worry about the number of firefighters who become ill with cancer and other serious disease. Bullock was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2009. They keep tabs on who among them dies within a year of retirement.

"Shift work, interrupted sleep, medical exposures, carcinogens and accidents take their toll," Bullock wrote in his goodbye note. "It's hard on your knees, your back and your body."

In Anchorage, they work 24-hour shifts every other day. After their third shift, they get a four-day break. That may sound like a good schedule, considering they can sleep at the fire station if nothing is happening. But in busy parts of town, there are almost always calls. Firefighters become programmed to wake up every few hours whether they're on duty or not.

The equipment has improved greatly, Bullock said. Better hoses. Better protective gear. Custom-fitted air masks. Big hoods that cover what the mask doesn't. When he started, the standard issue pants were polyester -- one of the worst things to wear near flames. Now the pants are made of a fire-resistant material.

Procedures are better too. Firefighters used to keep their sooty uniforms right by their beds so they could jump into their boots and go at the first alarm. Now, realizing the residue may be toxic, the uniforms are washed right away.

They used to deploy big fans to blow smoke out of a burning building. The fans collected so much soot and crud they had be cleaned with oven cleaner. Now fire crews blow fresh air into a burning building to dilute the acrid smoke, being careful not to fan flames, he said.

Instead of riding a tall ladder up, firefighters climb up the ladder or into a big basket that's lifted.

There's more need for that protection than ever, Bullock said.

"The chemicals we are exposed to now are worse than they were 20 years ago because of all the plastics and synthetics and hydrocarbons," he said.

Bullock calls the work physically and psychologically demanding. He says firefighters all carry around "horrid videos in our brains." He remembers a terrible trailer fire, the toys in the yard, the mom, dad and two children who didn't get out.

His first wife, Mary Ann, had muscular dystrophy and died in 2005. He married a dispatcher, Lee Blouin, in 2009. She retired last week. They're moving to Washington state. They already bought a place where they can garden all year.

His last day, he was called to a house fire right off. He oversaw a fitness test required of firefighters that requires either fast running, or brisk walking while carrying a heavy pack.

And he made the rounds of Anchorage fire stations. He was based at Station 12, on the Seward Highway frontage road north of Dimond Boulevard. Firefighters signed a big shiny plaque honoring him as part of Station 12's "Dirty Dozen." His underlings took the chance to tease him. He got sprayed with hoses -- part of the fire department's retirement ritual.

"It'll go faster than you think," he told one fire crew.

------

Reach Lisa Demer at [email protected] or 257-4390.