Saturday, June 15, 2013, Brother Daniel Ploesser, Iota Mu/Missouri 2014, became a graduate of the Boone County Fire Protection District’s Fire Academy.
Brother Ploesser hadn’t given much thought to becoming a firefighter. He had been working part-time at the University Police Department when a co-worker asked him if he would be interested in volunteering for the Fire Department. Ploesser decided to give it a shot and was soon on his way to joining the Fire Academy.
“The opportunity to be a fireman and help my friends and neighbors while still pursuing my education and career really excited me,” said Ploesser.
Although it is not a requirement in the State of Missouri for volunteer firefighters to attend an academy, to become a volunteer with the Boone County Fire Protection District a prospective volunteer must first attend the state accredited Fire Academy at the Boone County Fire Protection District training center. At the Fire Academy volunteers experience the same training techniques as paid firefighters across the country.
“Preparing for the academy was fairly easy, said Ploesser. “I consider myself in shape so I didn’t do a lot of preconditioning, however, nothing could really prepare me for the training during the academy,” he said.”The Fire Academy is very time consuming as well as mentally and physically challenging,” he continued. “Although you do your best to prepare, once you put on all of your Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) any physical activity becomes harder. (PPE includes bunker gear, boots, helmet, air tank, and more). Although the gear keeps firemen safe inside a building where fire temperatures can exceed 2000 degrees, it makes moving around difficult. Add a charged hose line and steel tools to the pay load, it’s a little bit more than your average work out at the student rec center,” Ploesser added.
There was one particular training day stands out for Ploesser.
“One Saturday, after eight hours of training in the rain, we had to run up about five floors as fast as we could in full gear, tools and all. Once we finished we were all exhausted,” said Ploesser. “At that point one of the lieutenant’s began to talk about what a hero is, and how many recruits think they deserve the title of “hero”. He spoke about the firefighters who made it to the 78th Floor of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. It really put into perspective that none of us were heroes. We were quickly humbled by our efforts to run eight floors of stairs in comparison to the heroes from September 11th, 2001,” he said. “Then our lieutenant gave us a motivational speech about not becoming heroes, but becoming professionals. We should strive to be professionals and pray we don’t end up having to be heroes,” Ploesser continued.
Ploesser admits that attending the Fire Academy has been one of the most challenging commitments he has made.
“I took a lot of challenging classes in upper level statistics and business courses this semester. With 16 credit hours at the University of Missouri, plus 20 hours at night and weekends at the Fire Academy and working overnight shifts at the police station all while trying to participate in traditional college activities was extremely difficult,” said Ploesser. “However, the experiences I have had and the friendships I made along the way I wouldn’t trade for anything,” he added.
Plosser has been assigned to Station 15 of the Boone County Fire Protection District, just a few miles from the Missouri's campus in Columbia. He will be working an “on call” schedule, and will participate in monthly training and weekly truck and equipment checks to make sure his equipment is always ready.
“I had never considered being a Career Firefighter until after joining the Fire Academy,” said Ploesser. “All my life I had wanted to be a State Trooper, never a firefighter. After completing the academy, I have considered the possibility of becoming a career firefighter, but only time will tell,” he added
The Boone County Fire Protection District is one of the largest volunteer fire departments in the county. It is the largest volunteer department in the state and the 3rd largest fire department overall in the State of Missouri with around 270 volunteer firefighters.