Arcadia England

Hi my name is Nick Gosik. I am a spring FYSAE London student. To give a background of me, I am from Bensalem, PA and a graduate of Bensalem High School. Back at home my hobbies are usually just hanging with friends, fishing, hunting, and boating. But one hobby that is slowly turning into a career for me is Firefighting. I am a volunteer fire fighter with the Eddington Fire Co. 28. Coming over here, this is what I miss the most, but I have still been very active with the fire service.

While here, I wanted to investigate the fire fighters so I looked into it. I was lucky enough to get in contact with my local firehouse here in London and get to visit. Being in love with the fire service now, this was a thrill and I couldn’t wait to take advantage of it. I wanted to see what was similar between how we operate and they operate, but more importantly I wanted to see the differences. I noticed something immediately as I was walking up to the firehouse. The firehouse was an old-fashioned brick building, beautifully built. Unlike ours at home which are new, state of the art facilities with computers, TVs, brand new alert systems, etc.  The guys were there to greet me, and they were very welcoming.  Right away the tour started. They asked me what I wanted and well I said, “I want to see everything”. So, they showed me everything and I couldn’t have been more excited.

They started by showing me the trucks which right away, just by the build of them, were totally different from ours. Back home in the US we have big trucks in all colors, and for all different types of accidents. Here, their trucks are all the same color, and a lot smaller then ours because they need to navigate such small streets. One thing that stuck out to me about these trucks though was that they carried a wide variety of equipment for being such small trucks; they are like a multipurpose tool! Inside the trucks, they had the similar tools such as the Thermal Camera, Lights, and our air packs we wear. I did notice one thing that they have and we don’t, but I like a lot. It was their accountability system. Theirs is electronic and hooked up to their packs, while back in the states we use tags and an officer who remembers who goes in. If they need to come out here they just press a button and a sound goes off, but back at home if we need to get out they have to blow the horns on the trucks. This system is much simpler, and more reliable. I feel that it could save a lot of lives.  Their personal protective gear was very similar to ours, besides the helmet. Our helmets have shields that fold up and down, are clear, and they are light. The helmets the London fire brigade have are very heavy, but very futuristic looking. They have two shields, with one being tinted gold for at night, and one clear for use during the day. So far in the tour, I was having a blast and couldn’t wait to see more.

The firehouse itself was way different from ours. They have a fireman pole, something that has gone extinct across America sadly. What they also have is a lot of stairs and many stories. Back home, most firehouses have only two stories, so they are easy to navigate when we get a call, but here they have to run down many steps and through many doors to get to the trucks, which they agreed was a lot more difficult. After the tour was over, we sat out front and we all just started chatting and getting to know each other better. They wanted to learn more about how I operate, so they started asking me questions and I started to tell them how we did things. Then after a while we all got to joking around about anything, just like we do back home. Their personalities and the way they interact are just like our departments; we goof off and have fun but when that bell rings, its time to work. That made me feel so at home just being with a group I related with, and all in all we had a great time chatting. Finally, it was time to go back, so I said goodbye, but not for the last time because they invited me to come back whenever to hang out or if I wanted to learn more to chat with them. When I got back home, I thought about how great this experience was, and I am glad I was able to meet more people in my local community that do what I do back home, and now I have connections. But it got better.

I found out that they had a London Fire Brigade museum, and right away I made an appointment to get a tour. When I got there, I found out that the museum was next to their training facility, so I got to see them train with new trucks even before the tour started, so that was an amazing experience. The tour itself was amazing, to see the history of one of the first and greatest fire brigades in the world. The knowledge I gained there was amazing, learning stuff I never would have known if it weren’t for visiting the museum. After the tour, I made sure to get myself and my brothers and sisters the firehouse patches for our shirts from the LFB, along with other memorabilia I could bring home to have and show everyone. This got me to thinking, where else could I go and see? So I am planning to visit firehouses in other countries I am going to. These include firehouses in Italy, Poland and my favorite Ireland, where the best firefighters in the world work.

God Bless everyone who I have and will come in contact with, and I hope that this blog made someone look into being a firefighter or volunteering in their local community! So maybe in the future, you will hear back from me about what else I learned while doing what I love, being a volunteer firefighter and putting my life on the line for others, serving my community as well as my great country!