ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – Hot weather continues to permeate the Jacksonville area, and while we’ve been telling residents how to stay safe and cool, some professions, like firefighting, make it a little more difficult to accomplish.
So, we traded in our microphones for some firefighter gear and suited up alongside Saint Johns County Fire and Rescue crews to see how they stay cool when responding to calls, especially during heat waves.
“Heat acclimation is huge for us,” said Chris Naff with SJCFR, who explains that fighting fires in sweltering heat isn’t just physically demanding, it can be dangerous.
Naff also says acclimating is only half the battle. The real preparation, he says, starts long before the call comes in.
“Our biggest thing is preparation, hydration, staying hydrated, not just the shift, but the shift before, and prepping, you know, the night before and the day before, staying hydrated, getting a good night’s sleep, if we can get a good night’s sleep,” Naff said.
Their mornings start with a shift change and equipment checks, followed by workouts, sometimes in full gear, to build stamina for the day ahead. By late morning, it’s all about outdoor training to help them acclimate before the worst of the heat sets in.
“We try to get everybody inside to kind of get them cooled off, because they’re going to be running calls for the rest of the day and end of the night,” Naff said.
Whether it’s workouts in shorts or full bunker gear, firefighters make it a point to push themselves and acclimate to the heat they’ll face on real calls. But when the temperatures peak, they rely on something a little cooler: The department’s mobile cooling truck.
“So this is a big thing for us to use during our extremely hot days, but we also use it year-round,“ Naff explained. ”With the heat emergencies, or the heat warnings that the National Weather Service puts out, this helps greatly... All of our battalion chiefs, or even our company officers, can call for this unit at any point, even if they’re doing training.”
On extreme heat advisory days, crews try to tackle their tasks early, so when the temperatures spike, they can cool off and stay ready for the next call, regardless of what the Florida sun has planned for them.
