New Kensington junior firefighter advances in ranks with plans to go pro
Mark Jackson had just finished talking about his plans to become a professional firefighter on Friday when an alert on his phone went off, telling him there was a fire just down the street from his station, New Kensington Fire Department Company 2.
A heartbeat later, the deafening siren went off overhead. Jackson, 18, rushed to get his gear with fire Chief Bruce Davis, with whom he was chatting just a moment earlier outside the department’s garage on Freeport Street.
At the house where the call originated, firefighters found a 200 watt light bulb had caught a lamp shade on fire. The shade fell, igniting a recliner. The home was full of smoke, and the woman who lives there was standing on the lawn, unhurt but distraught.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Jackson said later of the call. When a call comes in, “The adrenaline, it does start going.
“The main thing going through my mind is: What am I going to be working with,” he said. “We get updates as we’re responding. We have to mentally review that, then see with our own eyes what we’re actually dealing with.”
That call Friday morning was among the first Jackson, formerly a junior firefighter, has responded to since becoming a full member of the volunteer department following his 18th birthday last Saturday.
He was voted into the regular membership Tuesday.
With Jackson’s ascension in the ranks, Company 2 has 28 members and four junior members, Davis said. Another junior firefighter, Tyler Metz, 17, son of Capt. Dave Metz, is due to move up in September.
“Mark’s a good kid. He’s been very active,” Davis said. “He attends training. He’s not afraid to go to school. He’s not afraid to get dirty. He helps out with any fundraisers we have. He’s very active for calls.
“We’re looking forward to having him here, and we think he’ll be very good for us.”
Teens can become junior firefighters at 14. They’re limited in what they can do and take on more duties as they get older.
Junior firefighters are always wanted at New Kensington’s five companies, Davis said.
“We need the younger generation to follow in our footsteps and take over for when we’re too old to do this,” he said.
Most junior firefighters stay on to become regular members.
“Once it’s in their blood, it’s in their blood, and they stick with it,” Davis said.
Jackson started as a junior firefighter in Arnold when he was 14 in 2016, when New Kensington didn’t have a junior firefighter program. New Kensington started accepting junior firefighters in 2017. Jackson transferred there in 2018 because it was closer to home, making responding to calls easier.
“It’s been fun,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot of new things.”
While he has two grandparents who were firefighters, Jackson said he originally wanted to be a police officer. His career plans changed after he started volunteering as a firefighter.
“I like giving back to the community,” he said. “I wanted to do whatever I could to help.”
A self-described “sports guy,” Jackson played football and baseball at Valley High School, where he graduated this year. He enjoys hunting, fishing and riding quads.
Jackson is working at the McDonald’s not far from a fire station in Lower Burrell and will be attending Butler County Community College. He plans to become an emergency medical technician and then a paramedic, with his ultimate goal being to become a paid firefighter.
If he didn’t have a job, and if he weren’t a volunteer firefighter, Jackson says he knows it would be easy to go down the wrong path in New Kensington — a city that he said too often makes news for wrong reasons but that he sees as getting better.
“I wanted to get into something so I could get on the right track,” he said.
If Jackson makes good on becoming an EMT and paramedic, Davis said, he should have no problem finding a paying firefighting job somewhere, even if it means leaving Pennsylvania, where most fire departments are volunteer.
“I think Mark could go far, I really do,” Davis said.
Jackson knows that, as a firefighter, he could be risking his life.
“There’s always that thought in the back of my mind,” he said. “You’ve got to put everybody else before you. You have to focus on getting the job done.”
Brian C. Rittmeyer, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College, has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
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