Birthday fire...

Being raised in around the fire service, some traditions stay the same, some evolve and some stay the same. Since I came of age and became a junior, my birthday has always come with a mixed bag. Unfortunately it was a bag of crazy. An example of the fun that seems to follow me happened on my 17th birthday. My parents were planning a little get together with some friends from school and friends from the department. It was a warm and dry March, and forest fire season had already hit full force in Kentucky. Most departments in the county had active fires within their respective districts. Ours was one of those departments, I remember heading to the department to meet with my friends and a page comes a cross for a fire threatening a house in our area, I remember thinking no big deal, most people in our areas call the department long before a fire gets within a hundred yard of their house. I would go to the station and wait there until they figure out what was going on. I remember listening to the radio traffic, then all of the sudden screaming and then silence. While in route to our call, our tanker had been ditched and rolled. The sounds over the radio were those of the occupants as the truck rolled. I turned around and went in the direction of travel the tanker would have taken to the call and sure enough came upon a rolled over 2000 gallon tanker. We handled the incident and went on with our task of working the fire call, and the accident. Long story short, this started a long line of crazy birthday calls and me no longer celebrating my birthday. Have a great evening...JJ