![]() ![]() “I never expected to get accolades for that.” “What I was recognized for is something I’ve done my whole career,” he said. ![]() “The recent cancer studies have made me even more alarmed.”īecause of this, the recent recognition left him humbled, he said In his review of fire studies and incidence of cancer and injuries and firefighters deaths, he became alarmed that the same number of firefighters have been dying since the 1970s, despite improvements in equipment and safety procedures. He was fighting a house blaze in Emerald Bay when the second-story floor he was on gave way and he was left hanging just feet over flames.įrom his first day in the fire service, Jennie has been focused on firefighter safety. In 2007, Jennie had another scary encounter. “That fire had a huge impact on me and I realized what it meant to have an urban interface in a wildland component.” “We had to move the strike team into a burned-out area and a helicopter had to drop water,” Jennie said. Gary Ganger were in Laguna Canyon when they and their strike team were run over by a fire. 27 as one of the most frightening days of his 30-year career. In October 1993, a firestorm raced across 14,337 acres and devoured 441 homes in Laguna Beach, becoming the most destructive blaze in county history. In 1990, he landed the job with Laguna Beach. He went to work as a paid call firefighter for OCFA, then to the San Jacinto Fire Department in Riverside County. Jennie told him he hadn’t because he thought that line of work would be too difficult to get into.Ĭruz told Jennie he was the type of person who should be in the fire service, Jennie recalled. Years later, when Jennie was in college and had started toward a career working with handicapped children, he had a chance encounter with Cruz.Ĭruz asked if he had gone into the fire service. The stories he told Jennie sparked the boy’s interest in getting involved with the Buena Park Fire Explorers program. The coach, Paul Cruz, was also a Downey firefighter. ![]() “I always had a desire to help others and to serve.”īut it was a Little League coach that really motivated him. Jennie, of Dana Point, recalls knowing as a 6-year-old that he wanted to become a firefighter. “Scott is out there constantly reminding firefighters, ‘When you get cancer-causing smoke on your helmets and uniforms – bag them up and get them cleaned,’” Weinert said. Jennie is focused on keeping his colleagues and department on the low end of that number. National statistics show that firefighters have a 63 percent chance of getting some type of cancer. This can help save lives.”īut the on-the-job dangers go beyond the obvious. “If our firefighters get injured, he or she can’t help someone else. “A lot of us haven’t trained like that since being in the fire academy,” he said. Laguna Beach Division Chief Api Weinert, who came onto the department around the same time as Jennie, said he is impressed with Jennie’s passion and commitment to firefighter safety. “We’re trained to rescue people, but firefighters are not trained to rescue themselves,” Jennie said. ![]() In the scenarios, participants rescued a downed firefighter on a ladder, navigated through a wire maze in zero visibility, maneuvered through drywall and studs and rescued an unconscious firefighter through a window. ![]()
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