TRUCKEE, Calif. (KCRA) - Responding to emergencies in the snow can present a major challenge, but the Truckee Fire Department is ready. KCRA talked to firefighter Nick Brown about the unique challenges and solutions the department faces. Q: What's it like working up here in the winter?
Q: What’s it like working up here in the winter?
A: If you can imagine trying to operate and do anything we do on an ice rink or in snowy conditions. So everything changes. Everything is more challenging. Everything is more delayed. It’s definitely unique in a fire department to operate in, but we’ve been operating in these conditions for 120-plus.
Q: What’s the hardest part?
A: Some of the biggest challenges that we come across are getting to an incident, road conditions, steep driveways covered in ice and snow and narrow shoulders on the highway.
Q: When happens when you respond to a call and find the road isn’t properly plowed?
A: We will call in for a plow to come up to our area. We have loaders in our fire station that we can use as well.
Q: And when that doesn’t work?
We carry snowshoes on our vehicles so we put a set of snowshoes on and grab our over-the-hill medical bag and hike into incidents.
Q: We’re expecting as much as six feet of snow by the end of the week. How do you find all the fire hydrants?
A: We’re going to find hydrants that are pretty well buried. Our department is very diligent about clearing out hydrants with loaders and having off-duty firefighters go out with shovels and really make sure that they’re accessible.