Interview; Clackamas Fire Lieutenant

So this is an interview that I completed for my Journalism class, hope ya enjoy!

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Ken Mulkey is a local citizen that has been in the fire service since 1991 and currently works at Fire Station #17 in Oregon City. He grew up in Keizer and attended McNary high school. He spent the last twenty-five years being married and has three children. Let’s take a deeper look at Mulkey’s life and job;

Interviewer: So what exactly is your official job title or rank?

Mulkey: I am a lieutenant. Each station has a lieutenant, an officer, and a driver. The driver, he or she drives, listens to the call, runs the pump -if it's not a fire that they help with, then it's medical, and many other things. A Lieutenant is the one that kind of organizes whats going to be done. If it's a structure fire then there is usually five or six pieces of equipment, and the officer is the person that is in charge of his crew, to assign them a task to complete, like to ventilate the roof or a search of the building. He oversees his crew and makes sure it's getting done and looks out for situation awareness; Making sure his crew stays safe and gets the task completed.

Interviewer: How much training did you have to go through to get to were you are now?

Mulkey: I have a two year degree in Fire Science. Typically most firefighters want to have an associates degree, some will have a bachelors degree, and that can vary. A lot will have a bachelors degree in Fire Administration. If your interested in progressing up to a management position then a degree in fire science and business or fire administration would be very practical to get.

Interviewer: Did you always want to be a firefighter?

Mulkey: No, actually I wanted to be a policeman. But then I realized they had targets on their back and I would rather help people out in a time of need.

Interviewer: Going back to your early days of training, was there any obstacles that you had to overcome?

Mulkey: Ya, I wasn't the best student.

Interviewer: Do you mean grade wise?

Mulkey: Yes, grade wise. And I'm also a paramedic and it was very hard to get through paramedic classes. The thing is that I wasn't the best student when it came to academics. And that was an obstacle that I really had to work on by learning good study practices.

Interviewer: How many of the calls that you receive are actually related to fires?

Mulkey: Very little. I think our statistics show on our website that 85%-89% are actually non-fire calls, the other 15% deals with fires, car fires, wires down, some type of a road hazard or something.

Interviewer: Do you think that from having different experiences of seeing different traumas, that you have become more numb to tragedy's that you see in your work?

Mulkey: For me it has, I know a lot of guys that maybe not, but I'm a little bit less sensitive, a little less compassionate I guess, as you do get a little hard. A lot like the police officers, they deal with criminal aspect a lot so there really numb to things in society. So I feel that that falls true also in the fire service. You can't -It will just eat you up sometimes if you get personally involved with it, and we don't want that to happen.

Interviewer: And that's why you have your counseling and services like that

Mulkey: Yes, good relations with friends and stuff, that your able to de-brief yourself with. And the way we de-brief on certain things, an outsider looking in might think it's really strange the way we do it; there might be a humor factor in it, that's just the way we kind of de-brief ourselves, we try to use comedy in some of our de-briefing, ‘Why?’ I guess is so that it doesn't really impact us

Interviewer: What would you say then is the most important thing in your life?

Mulkey: I would have to say my faith.

Interviewer: Would you mind explaining that a little bit more?

Mulkey: I just have a good christian faith, I think a lot of times that helps with some of the traumatic experiences your in. And it kind of gives a sense of hope for others when there dealing with a situation, and they have more of a resource, and it also gives me more of a resource when I need help because I got a whole church family that I can rely on to get support. And seeing people with death and dying it just makes it easier on my aspect, because I know if that were me I wouldn't have to have the fear and the worry that some people do when  they know that there about to... die.

Interviewer: If there was a young person who wanted to become a firefighter, what would your advice be to them?

Mulkey: My advice would be to obviously stay in school, that sound like maybe a cop-out but it's not, if your in high school really concentrate and try and get good grades. Grades do matter, in the long run as you look at things. Things are so competitive these days that colleges look at students with better grades and so if they have an opportunity to get a student that has a 4.00 and a 3.00 your going to try and get that 4.00 student, and so it's very competitive. Try hard, study hard, go to college, and just work. Also, if you want to be in the fire service, find a community hospital that has a volunteer program or explore while your in high school and volunteer. There’s different types of volunteer programs. You have a residency program were you live in the station, or you just live in the area and respond to the station when there’s a call.

Interviewer: Are there any last words or anything else that you would like to talk about?

Mulkey: Actually, you know being in the fire service, it's called the best job in the world, and I think it is because you work one day on, two days off, If I take a vacation day, I get five days off then, where as anybody else who takes a vacation day gets one day off. So you work a lot, your up a lot at night, and your working 24 hour periods, but you have more time off to do more family oriented things,

Interviewer: Well you just mentioned staying up all night, do you have a hard time adjusting to that?

Mulkey: You do, and we have a dormitory, each station has one. From 8am to 5pm we do business things, Inspections, we drill, we study, we have house cleaning, we have things that are put on our calendar that we have to do. Then around 4 or 5 O'clock our day winds down and we do personal time, I'm taking a class, so I study for the class that I'm taking, and at night we can sleep, but if the alarm goes off, were right here and we have to go. I just came from a station that averaged 3 calls a night, and that really messes up your schedule. I would go home and be very tired and have to take a 1 or 2 hour nap, other stations don't run quite as many calls a night. I've been in the fire service for twenty five years, and you learn to adapt.

Interviewer: Alright, it was nice getting to interview you and I really appreciate you allowing me to do that. Thank you,

Mulkey: Thank you and have a good day

Interviewer: You too!

It’s important that we as citizens respect the firefighters that work so hard to help the people of the community. I was truly honored to meet Ken Mullkey and to interview him, and now have an even deeper level of respect for the men and women that serve our community.

If your interested in becoming a volunteer firefighter, then you can visit the Clackamas Fire Volunteer page; http://www.clackamasfire.com/volunteerservices/index.html

Written by Adriana Castillo