By Shari Sanger
The Evening Sun (Hanover, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
HANOVER, Pa. — Every time he puts on his firefighting gear, Wayne Felix is continuing a family tradition.
The 30-year-old New Oxford resident is a volunteer at the New Oxford Fire Co. and a career firefighter in Baltimore. He’s been in the fire service for 17 years.
He says it was the exposure he had to firefighting as a child that made him want to pursue it as a career.
Felix remembers hanging around the fire station with his father, Rodney “Ike” Felix, who was the fire chief in New Oxford years ago. He recalls riding in the fire trucks with his dad to calls.
Once at a scene, he would stand back and watch, and ask questions. He would do minor tasks, such as handing firefighters tools they requested.
“It was a learning experience,” Felix said.
Once he turned 14, Felix joined the volunteer organization as a junior firefighter.
“It’s one of the things we did in our family,” Felix said. “You get to give back and do something to help people.”
His dad has been a member at the fire company since 1970; his mother, Pat Felix (also the Adams County coroner), since 1980. His younger brother, B.J., has been a member since 1994.
When Felix turned 18, he was allowed to run fire calls.
He can’t recall the very first fire he responded to but says his first large fire came within a year or two.
“It’s hot, it’s smoky and scary,” he said.
And no matter how much you do it, he said, that never changes.
After graduating from Delone Catholic High School in 1994, Felix worked “odds and ends” jobs, including roofing and making car parts, while continuing to volunteer with the fire company.
After several years, he applied for a position with the Baltimore City Fire Department. It was a 15-month process from the time he took various tests and screenings until he learned if he got a job.
He’s been working at the city’s Engine Co. 6 for three years. He works two, 10-hour days back to back, followed by two, 14-hour nights.
He has a one-hour commute.
“It’s a job just like any other job,” he said.
Fire is fire, and the act of fighting fires itself is no different, regardless of where you do it, he said.
But firefighting in the busy city compared to rural Adams County is different in some ways, including the quality of life, Felix said.
“It’s culture shock,” he said.
In Baltimore, there’s far more traffic and houses are closer together so fires tend to be spotted more quickly. And when firefighters get a call, the fire stations are already manned, meaning response time is faster.
In Adams County — where almost all fire stations are run by volunteers — homes are spread out, so it may be awhile before someone even notices a fire, Felix said. But when a call comes into the county, members have to first respond to the station, then get the apparatus and respond to the scene. It may take 10 minutes to get there, he said.
In comparing the two areas, firefighters respond to many more calls in the city.
When Felix is on duty in Baltimore, the fire station becomes his home. He sleeps there. He and the other 15 or so people on his shift cook dinner and sit down and eat together.
“It’s like being with your family,” he said.
But it’s also being away from your family at home.
He has a wife, Kelly, and a 2-year-old son, Camden (aptly named for Felix’s love for the Baltimore Orioles).
“I still try to be a good husband and father,” Felix said.
The time away from family is hard, he said.
“People don’t realize sometimes it means missing birthdays, holidays, or other special occasions,” he said.
If he is scheduled to work in Baltimore, he already knows he’ll be away from home. But with New Oxford Fire Co., he and the other volunteers could be called away at any minute if a fire breaks out.
“Those fires don’t know it’s Christmas,” he said. " And it does take a certain type of person to be able to leave your family at Christmas.”