Firefighters are my heroes and I've always wanted to make a film about them. As you may have read in one of my earlier Steemit blog posts, a few years ago I made a short film about what it's like to work up in the fire lookout on the East Peak of Mt. Tamalpais. The majority of my days there are spent in watchfulness listening to Marin County Fire dispatch sending firefighters on calls. As I became more and more familiar with what I was hearing, I began to marvel at how our first responders are instantly ready to help anyone in trouble… and there were plenty of emergencies on that radio. Car and bike accidents, structure and wildland fires, medical emergencies and more…
There are a constant string of crises that firefighters have to respond to FAST.
As I sat there and quietly watched for fires, listening to these people who dedicate their lives to helping us, I became more and more impressed with how ready they are to jump into their engines and roll at a moments notice. I started asking questions of my friends in the fire service… “How are you so ready to spring into action so quickly?” “What does it take to be prepared for literally ANY emergency that might arise?” The answers got me thinking about how most people have no idea of the amount of work it takes for these hard-working people to be there for us 24/7, 365 days a year.
This is the height of our fire season here in Northern California. As of last week almost 600,000 acres have burned in our state just this year so far. Although we all conceptually know that this is what first responders are supposed to do, here is a visual document honoring how our firefighters make instant-on heroism possible.
Some of the scenes in the film include:
Training various hose evolutions with new recruits.
The pressure on these hoses is immense.
What a Master Stream (sometimes called a "Deck Gun") is used for.
Prepping and maintaining equipment (this is the Jaws of Life spreader).
I used an Inspire drone to capture interesting angles on the action.
Training for roof venting operations. These are incredibly dangerous and are where most firefighters perish every year.
Cliff rescuers are frequently necessary along the headlands in Marin County and they train constantly for it.
Firefighters are frequently responsible for bringing injured people up a cliff like this, all by themselves.
Thanks for watching.
I have a long history of inventing tools for animators and also making films and photographs. My wife, daughter and I live at the foot of beautiful Mt. Tamalpais on the San Francisco Bay and I've been using technology to tell complex stories for a long time. My biggest claim to fame? Leading the team that created Autodesk 3ds Max... the most popular 3D animation tool of all time. When I sold the Yost Group to Autodesk at the end of the last century I jumped headfirst into pursing my original love... photography and filmmaking. Now I spend all of my time exploring the mysteries of my world with my cameras, and revealing what I find in my images and films.
You can find my verification post here.