FORGED in FIRE Life as a firefighter both grueling, rewarding

Firefighters have two families: one at home and one at the firehouse.

That’s how Dan Schaeffer describes it. The 25-year-old has worked for Northern Lakes Fire District in Hayden as a firefighter and paramedic since January 2019.

The crews work 48-hour shifts, followed by four days off. In that time, they do everything together, from cooking and cleaning to training and exercise. These shared experiences forge a close bond.

“You do become family,” he said.

Schaeffer grew up in Post Falls. Right out of high school, he discovered that an office job wasn’t for him. He knew he wanted to serve others — it was just a question of how. He considered enlisting in the military, but ultimately decided to get his EMT certification through North Idaho College.

After that, he volunteered for Shoshone County Fire District #1 in Osburn. That was when he fell in love with the job.

“It’s everything I imagined,” he said. “It can be grueling. But every now and then, you go on that one call that reignites the spark.”

For Schaeffer, those calls usually involve kind patients. Even a small gesture of appreciation makes a big difference in Schaeffer’s day.

The shift begins at 7 a.m. Between calls, crews keep busy with paperwork, training and maintaining equipment. Schaeffer said each shift is a constant cycle of learning.

“We want to be the best at our jobs,” he said.

In addition to fire service, Northern Lakes Fire District provides ambulance and medical transport services to the Hayden and Rathdrum areas. They used to get around 3,000 calls per year. But as the population grows, so do the needs of the community. Now they get around 5,000 calls per year — with the same number of stations and resources.

“We wear a lot of hats,” said Aaron O’Brien, an engineer paramedic. “We’re stretched thin.”

When the pressure is so intense, transitioning from “work mode” to “family mode” at the end of his shift can be a challenge, Schaeffer said. He often needs alone time to turn his mind off and decompress.

“It’s something I struggle with,” he said. “It takes a special person to really understand.”

O’Brien agreed. Firefighters and paramedics are faced with situations that most members of the general public will never experience. It can be traumatic.

“Nobody’s wired to see that kind of stuff,” O’Brien said.

But they find ways to cope. Sometimes that involves speaking with a professional who can help them process their emotions after an especially traumatic call. Less formally, O’Brien said firefighters often develop a somewhat macabre sense of humor, as a means of “finding the lighter side” of things.

The hard calls stand out in O’Brien’s memories. But there are happy endings, too. In his first or second year as a firefighter, he managed to revive a man who’d gone into cardiac arrest. The man needed advanced life support, but he recovered — and later, he visited the station.

Meeting the man whose life he’d saved meant a great deal to O’Brien, especially because it was so rare.

“We pour our hearts out on these calls and never know how it turned out,” he said. “So it means a lot when people write letters or visit.”

O’Brien has been with Northern Lakes Fire District since 2013. He was Schaeffer’s teacher during paramedic training.

Before entering the fire service, he worked at Black Rock Marina in Hayden. He went through EMT training in order to make camp safer, which led to volunteering as a firefighter in Worley. The rest is history.

“It’s fulfilling to help people in need,” he said.

Firefighters and paramedics are often with people during the worst moments of their lives — a grim responsibility at times, but a rewarding one. It can be hard for the general public to understand, O’Brien said.

“The public doesn’t know what we do and won’t learn until they have their own worst day,” O’Brien said.