SENTIALS OF FIRE FIGHTING® AND RESCUE CTURAL FIRE FIGHTING: INITIAL RESPONSE STRATEGY AND TACTICS
PUMPING AND AERIAL APPARATUS DRIVER/OPERATOR HANDBOOK
CHIEF OFFICER OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, HEALTH, AND WELLNESS FIRE INSPECTION AND CODE ENFORCEMENT
VE FIRE INSTRUCTOR
also chaired the IAFF’s first Redmond Safety Conference, which continues today on a biannual basis. He also was active in the Masons and the Boy Scouts. His death in June 1981 was a loss to many especially to those in the fire service.
Everett E. Hudiburg It would be hard to write a history of IFSTA without mentioning Everett Hudiburg. (Figure 36) . Like Ray Pence and Fred Heisler, Hudiburg was there almost from the beginning. He was an integral part of the publications, and he continued his interest in the organization after his official retirement and until the time of his death on February 11, 1987. In return, IFSTA has honored him by naming its award for outstanding achievement in training for him. Like many others, Hudiburg happened into the fire service while planning a career in another direction. In the spring of 1932, while attending college at Oklahoma A&M, Hudiburg met Pence. Since jobs were scarce during the Great Depression, Hudiburg accepted Pence’s invitation to live in the fire station as a “sleeper” while continuing his education. Pence provided much of that education;
Figure 36
he trained Hudiburg and took him to conferences and training schools over the next several years. In 1933, Pence took Hudiburg and some others to Chicago to work a week with the Chicago Fire Insurance Patrol. By 1934, Hudiburg was qualified to accept a captain’s appointment on the Stillwater Fire Department. Hudiburg stayed with the department until his retirement in 1952, but he made a few detours along the way. In 1936, he left the department temporarily to become the state’s first itinerant fire instructor. But he returned to the fire department later in 1942 and was promoted to assistant fire chief and drillmaster. He trained many young men as firefighters and sometimes he filled in as an instructor in Oklahoma A&M’s academic fire degree program. His close association with the students led him during World War II to begin a small newsletter called The Booster Line , through which he hoped to keep contact with student firefighters in military service. The first monthly edition, which went out in August 1942, consisted of two pages of news, addresses, and breezy gossip. Over the next three years, The Booster Line grew in size and content. It listed fire alarms answered, discussed national policy toward the fire service, printed technical items, passed on personal news, and gave out addresses (until the censors curtailed that practice). Some of the items found their way into the NFPA’s Volunteer Fireman magazine . By the end of the war, the mailing list had grown to 150 and issues went wherever American forces were stationed. One of the last issues recorded Pence’s death and Hudiburg’s promotion to replace him. While Hudiburg served as assistant chief and then chief, he continued an interest in IFSTA and its work in publishing fire service training materials. Though Hudiburg had not attended that Kansas City meeting where the organization was born, he had attended every validation conference since, and had worked closely with Heisler, even writing parts of some of the manuals. So, it was natural when Hudiburg retired as fire chief in 1952 that he began working as an associate editor for the “Red Books.” He held that position for three (3) years, learning from Heisler and Douglas, until Heisler’s retirement in 1955, when Hudiburg was named editor of the manuals. As editor, Hudiburg provided continuity. He continued using the Heisler format and the time-tested Heisler method of compiling and checking materials at the validation conferences. Hudiburg, who remembered getting excited about distributing 1,000 manuals a month, saw distributions reach nearly 100,000 a year before his retirement in 1975. Hudiburg passed away on February 11, 1987.
56 IFSTA /FPP: THE FIRST 90 YEARS
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator