Members of the firefighting community were shocked Friday when Facebook user and career firefighter Chris Alston posted a message disparaging volunteer firefighters on the FireRescue1 Facebook fan page in a thread about a pet rabbit who ignited a structure fire. In his post, Alston claimed volunteer firefighters “are jerks”, and went on to use several unprintable schoolyard insults to further attack “vollies”. Alston gave no reason for his attack, but posts on his wall indicated he had spent much of the day training for the Century Club, including one image of an impressive beer can pyramid, or “Beer-amid”.
The post drew scattered “Likes,” which themselves drew criticism along the lines of “Why would you ‘Like’ that” and “You are a troll.”
Experts say attacks such as these are extremely rare within firefighting web sites and message boards, where members from all corners of the fire service typically interact harmoniously and language is generally kept to PG-13 levels and below.
A Google search of the keywords “career firefighters vs. volunteers” in Google returned only one result, and it was a crude protest site targeting the widely-panned 1985 Tom Hanks movie “Volunteers.”
FireRescue1 Facebook administrators had no comment about the blowup, as they were busy buying virtual credits to plant more crops in their “FarmVille” estates.