“I went to Omaha Central and graduated in 1994. I’m an Omaha kid through and through. Right out of high school, I started testing for the fire department while going to college in Lincoln. I was just taking general classes, but if I hadn’t gotten on Omaha Fire, I was planning to go do wildland firefighting out in the northwest.
I had the bug early. My uncle, Jerry Becerra, was on the job, and I grew up around firefighters. I went to Assumption Church in South Omaha, and there were Povandras, Koopskis—a whole bunch of firefighters in that community. It was pretty easy to fall into it. Back then, it was a blue-collar job, and South Omaha was full of blue-collar people.
I didn’t finish my degree because I got hired before I was done. It took me a few tries to get on. The first time I had no experience. The second time I had dislocated my ankle right before the test. Third time was the charm. I got hired in December of 2000. The academy was great. We had Jeff Pechar, Jon McAlpin, Strawn, O’Sullivan, Miratsky.
We were the last class to use the training tower, so we’d go around on our days off picking up furniture and throwing it over the fence so we’d have something to burn. Josh Goessling and I lived together, so we’d just load up his truck and go. We had Harvey Humphrey as a light duty instructor, and he would load up the high temp room. We ran some really hot fires. It was spalling, melting helmets—we had fun.
I went to Station 21 for my candidate year on A-Shift and spent the whole year there. Tony Lang was supposed to be my captain, but he got blown up the day before I showed up. There had been a gas leak and a house ignited twice. The second one blew him out the front door, so he was off when I got there.
I remember Roger Kruger, Jason McGhey, Robbie Nigh, Tom Redding, Reynoso on the engine. Mike Green and John Johnson were on the medic. Aivars Kruces was the Battalion Chief. He was a good chief. I remember one time he’s sticking his head through a basement window telling us to make sure we had our masks on, and the next thing you know he’s inside with us—and he didn’t even have a pack on.
My first fire was early, probably December. It came in as a medical call—a lady getting abused in a car. The guy ran off, poured gas in a house, and lit it up. I was told to stay with the patient until the medic got there. Once they did, they told me to go. The fire was rolling. I got my gear on and made it to the front door just as they were getting in.
I had over 45 working fires my first year. It was an incredible time. The truck wasn’t making runs, so we were catching everything. We were doing 14 to 16 runs a day. We had nights with multiple house fires, sometimes two houses down from each other. It was a good time to learn.
After 21s, I went downtown to Truck 1 for about six months while I was still on probation. Then Station 3 and Station 42. Downtown, we made a lot of fires—Amish Oak, Butternut Building, Ford Apartments. It seemed like the bigger fires always happened when it was cold.
The Amish fire—we were there all afternoon into the night, then went straight to another big fire at a recycling place. On the Amish fire, I had my steel toe ripped out of my boot when the aerial got extended while I was on the ladder. I was lucky. I still had all my toes. I fought that fire and the next one with no steel toe.
I eventually bid out to 42s. Nobody wanted to be out there at the time, but it was great. Josh Goessling came out too. We had Paul Parsons, Mike Petrovich, Brian Durant. You got to do a lot out there. You got experience. We had bad interstate accidents, fires, everything. It was busy, and nobody bothered you.
One of the worst calls was an accident with an older woman going the wrong way on the interstate. A pickup hit her head-on. The driver had both legs severed at the ankles. That’s the only time I’ve heard someone scream like that. We worked on him and saved at least one of his ankles.
From there I went to 31 briefly and then to 34. I was at 34 for several years. Jim Greer was the captain, and I really liked working for him. He was no-nonsense—just do your job. The territory has everything—ghetto, college, old neighborhoods, interstate runs. It was a good mix, and you got really sick people.
I kept cooking there. I always cooked, starting as a candidate. It kept me out in the common areas. I always thought the kitchen and TV room were where you should be. That’s where the camaraderie is.
I eventually went to Engine 3 with Chris May. That was a great crew—Timmy Lubrant, Floyd Brown. We were competitive. We’d race fires, go downtown, hang out with the chiefs. Everybody worked well together.
A fire that stands out is M’s Pub in 2016. I was driving Engine 3. I pumped that fire the whole time. It was sub-zero. I was in shorts at first because it was early, then kept adding clothes. I stayed out there for seven hours straight, keeping water flowing so lines didn’t freeze. When we got relieved, my gear was frozen solid and I couldn’t get in the rig. I drove a backup rig home in a T-shirt.
The Engine 3 crash happened while I was assigned. It came in as a CPR call. John Nosbitch was driving—his first day down there. Aaron Craig was the acting Captain and Justin Iverson was riding backwards. A car pulled out in front of us at 16th and Leavenworth. We hit him, went through the guardrail, and into a building. It happened fast—boom, boom, boom. I checked on the crew, then went to help the driver we hit. I only missed a day of work. I think I had the least injuries.
Later in my career, I bounced around quite a bit—41s, 78s, 52s, 53s, and 77s. Mostly 77s toward the end. I call it my farewell tour. It was good to see different places and people again. One of my last big fires was mutual aid out to Waterloo. It was a snowy night. We crested a hill and could see the fire down in the floodplain. That’s probably my last big one.
If I had advice for new guys is don’t be so white-collar. Go back to blue-collar. Learn how buildings are put together. If you know how to build something, you know how to take it apart. I learned from everybody. Chris May taught me a lot. My ex-father-in-law, Mark Otto, taught me a lot before I ever got hired. Guys like Greer and Lang—everybody had something to offer. This job—you’ve got to be able to do everything. You don’t have time to think. You take what you have and make it work.
Now I’m retired after 25 years. I’ve been spending time down in Houston helping my sister with her business. She’s got greenhouses, and I help build and maintain them, do whatever needs to be done. I might split time between Omaha, Houston, and maybe Wyoming. I’ll do some fishing—maybe offshore down south, fly fishing up north.
The job has changed a lot, but it’s still good. I loved the job. I loved the people.”
Comments