Partners of Firefighters

How do you cope?
DH has just been called out to a bushfire...

I get so worried about him.

one of my best mates's DH is a fire fighter, I asked her one day if she worried about him and she said surprisingly not, because it is his job, and he knows what to do and how to do it. but he doesn't get called to bush fires, he works at the airport.
I'm not sure how you would not worry, I think I still would. but he knows what he is doing, they go through so much training, over and over again.

My dad was the captain of his local brigade for about 30 years so I know how you feel.

If you are really anxious about it you need to talk to him about it. I'm guessing you mean that he is a volunteer? As much as it is great that he is if it is causing you undue anxiety or stress there are plenty of other ways that he can still assist. Could he work in the fire control centre or head the fundraising committee or something?

The way I always thought about it was that he is not reckless, he always knows that life comes before any property and he knew the area better than anyone else I have ever met. It also helped me a little knowing that he was in charge of the truck at any time and it was him making the calls.

Having said that - good on him! I know that in Dad's area it is almost impossible to find young fit volunteers - dad's brigade average age is about 60.

I can't say who he works for, it would go against his code of conduct and if I was found out I would be in serious ****e.
His job is a sub-organisation of DSE (department of sustainability and environment)
But, it's a major part of his job. To go out and fight bushfires, especially during Summer.

My husband used to worry for me when I was called out. But he coped by, as a previous poster said, knowing that I was well trained and knew my stuff. If he was really worried, he'd contact friends from his work from other brigades to check on me. He rarely made calls though because he was confident in my skills and knew my crew was highly skilled. It wasn't until I got pregnant with DD that it became an issue...and only because I refused to stop turning out.

He also knew that if anything happened, he would hear pretty quickly.

It did give him a bit of perspective for how I felt when he was called away with his job.

I have been both firefighter, and partner of firefighter. I much prefer to be firefighter :lol:, but most jobs i don't really worry about DH. We train for bushfires, and both survived Black Saturday, even though it got hairy, so they don't scare me that much. We had a tanker fire recently though (potential for bleve (exploding truck)), and i was very relieved when i heard that one was under control.

Do you know his crew, is your dh and his crew well trained and disciplined? They are probably better indicators that things will be ok than the type of job they are going to, cos they will wear seatbelts when necessary, drive appropriately and will know when they can go full on and when they need to play it safe.

I know they are safe and know what they're doing, but I'm a worrywart.

Not just that DH will get hurt, but that it'll turn into a massive fire. The fire last night was very close to the national park and if it got into there it would have been near impossible to stop.