Post on the Raleigh Fire Department’s biggest ladder truck is lonely, but it comes with popularity
By Sarah Ovaska
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Copyright 2007 The News and Observer
RALEIGH, N.C. — Speed bumps aren’t a lot of fun up here.
They send you jostling up in the air from your seat in the back of the Raleigh Fire Department’s biggest ladder truck, and the eventual descent can be a sore awakening.
Multiply the impact of that when the truck is tearing down the road at 60-plus miles per hour, sirens wailing, and your main job (until you get to the fire itself) is to dodge the distracted motorists of Raleigh in the 75,000-pound machine.
That’s the life of a tiller driver on Raleigh Fire Department’s Ladder One. The tiller refers to the steering mechanism on the back of the truck.
With a ladder that stretches up for 100 feet and can reach the seventh-floor of a building, the fire fighting machine is the biggest in the department. During downtime and at night, it snuggles up in its downtown lair of Station One, on South Dawson Street.
The digs in the tiller aren’t comfortable. It’s hot in the summer, and air conditioning is a fleeting fancy. February days in the mid-60s call for turning on the tiny fans. Little relief comes in the muggy August days in this Southern city.
But there are perks.
Sitting up in the tiller, you have moments where you think you could give Stormy, the Canes’ mascot, a run for his money as the most popular person (err, mammal?) in Raleigh.
Children stop and stare in wonder, office workers wave jubilantly from sidewalks, and patrons of outdoor bars give alcohol-infused roars of delight to whoever sits in the back of the ladder truck.
Other firefighters want to be you. Well, at least that’s what tiller driver Mike Ezzell says.
It can get lonely though, with the rest of the crew riding together up front.
“I’m by myself,” he said about his glass-walled work station.
“There’s a reason for that,” his supervisor Capt. Greg Wall informs him. Teasing is also a constant.
Part of firefighting is being prepared for the unexpected, like Thursday’s massive fire in North Raleigh that coincided timewise with other fires across the city.
That means a lot of practice runs. So the crew likes to take Ladder One out to test their abilities in some of the trickiest spots in the city. The tightest (and most enjoyable) turn: the roundabout near N.C. State University’s Bell Tower. The biggest pet peeve: people who pull up too far in intersections, beyond the stop line, making it impossible for the truck to negotiate a turn.
Hardest maneuver: backing up the 63-feet-long truck into the station during downtown Raleigh’s Monday morning rush hour.
And along the practice run, Raleighites continue to show their love for the tiller driver.
Aspiring barbers gathered outside Harris Barber College waved and pointed their fingers in a salute to Ezzell as the ladder truck passed the South Blount Street school near Shaw University recently. A man waiting for a bus along South Wilmington Street flashed the peace sign. And the riders of the ladder truck show their love too, when they honk a greeting to a retired firefighter running a hot dog cart on Hillsborough Street near N.C. State’s campus.
The ladder truck doesn’t have a proper nickname, Capt. Wall admitted. The group floated the “Dragon Wagon” for a while, but a fire-breathing monster didn’t seem to be the best mascot for a fire department.
If anyone has a suggestion, Wall says to stop by Station One. Bring cookies, too. Sometimes the elementary school kids do, making for a very happy fire station.
‘I’m by myself,’ Mike Ezzell says of working at his post at the rear of the ladder truck while the rest of the crew rides together up front. But he says he’s the envy of his colleagues.