I’m 50, and training to be a volunteer firefighter. Here’s why…
Lizelle Smit is joining hundreds of old and young people who volunteer yearly. Normal people with families and jobs and all the usual stressors of life. So why?
Image courtesy of Volunteer Wildfire Services
When a long-standing volunteer asked me why I had joined the Volunteer Wildfire Services, I couldn’t tell him. Well, of course, I joined to fight fires! But why would I want to do that? For a few seconds, I was at a loss for words, before mumbling something about being a Voortrekker when I was young and being passionate about nature ever since.
It was my first day of volunteer firefighter training; I am one of a few dozen new volunteers recruited by VWS annually. As I was being drilled in the basics of firefighting, it was a question that kept smouldering. Why do I want to fight fires? It’s hard work, in extreme conditions, where you struggle to see and breathe, and you sometimes must get off the fire line when your fire-resistant shoes get too hot. One of our instructors said it beautifully – it’s often a day of extreme gardening… I would add: In the face of an inferno.
Yet hundreds of people, old and young, volunteer yearly. Normal people with families and jobs and all the usual stressors of life. So why?
For me, it’s to face a force of nature so elemental it stuns the senses. Mother Nature pulls herself to her godly height to give humans perspective. In December 2023, staring up at the fires in the mountains where I live, I have never felt so small, so lacking, so undeserving of oxygen. Because in a couple of seconds, it could all be gone. Like Thanos snapping his fingers. And often the only thing stopping that ‘snap’ is a couple of helicopters and a line of small, yellow volunteers doing extreme landscaping.
Another reason is that, as I get older, I’ve surprised myself with a growing need to join a community. A place where I am accepted, where I can serve and learn. And from my few interactions with the VWS, they seem big on the community. They start briefings by asking everyone to rate their mental and physical well-being on a scale of one to 10. Team leaders check in on ratings throughout your day, to ensure your safety, and that your team is strong. When last did someone ask you how you felt, on a scale of one to 10? It’s simply lovely to be asked.
It could also be that at age 50, I’ve taken the unstoppable creep of age and weakness personally. I feel insulted. And mad enough about it to fight dragons. I realise that at the root of it all is my inability to accept my body’s decay and ultimate death. Yet, as I repeatedly beat down on smothered, imagined flames in the dunes of Silvermine, I realised that I needed to level up. Get better, fitter, stronger for longer. Show up, be present. Because when you’re faced with a two-storey firewall – what do you do? You smother it, bit by bit. You starve it from fuel and oxygen. Again and again, you beat and smother until you can’t lift your arms anymore and a team member takes over. Then you rest, you eat, you stand up and you relieve a team member who can’t lift their arms anymore. So, I might not be able to stop time, but a couple of hours of my existence might allow a tortoise to shuffle away. Or a family home to survive.
So, while I might still be pondering the ‘why’, I know one thing for certain: It’s all theoretical. I have no idea if I have the knaters to do it. And until I stand there on the night of my first fire, I won’t know. And that’s something that excites me immensely. For now, I will blindly believe that the men and women in yellow standing next to me will give me the strength to walk forward, towards the flames.