One of the highlights of our job is that we get to show people on a day to day bases how hazardous the job is for firefighters like these, and the police officers alike.
As we are going about our day covering assignments for The Republican and MassLive, one of the things we try to do is cover "spot news" -- which, most times, we find out about when the calls come over the police and fire scanners we keep in our cars.
On the day of the Union Street fire in Springfield pictured above, I was just getting back into my car from a press conference at City Hall. I could hear the fire trucks responding before I got in the car; I knew something was going on. I drove up Maple Street to Union and pulled over onto Mulberry Street to get my car out of the way, since the fire trucks were still coming. The fire, which started in the back of the house, got worse, mostly because it was an older historic house. Fire tends to travel faster through those homes because of the construction.
I was across the street as the firefighters were getting on the roof when the fire broke through the roof, forcing them to get off in a hurry. I had my Nikon D300s with a long lens. One problem I had to overcome: the sun was coming right over the house and into the lens. Luckily, the smoke grew so heavy that it blocked the sun just long enough to take the photo.
One of the highlights of our job is that we get to show people on a day to day bases how hazardous the job is for firefighters like these, and the police officers alike. It lets us bring their story to the reader, to show that they do some remarkable things everyday and a lot of times don't get any credit.