- I knew from the get go that Reno Fire Department was the department I wanted to serve with, being born and raised here.

- Well, the simple answer is it's the best job in the world.

- We sweat together, we eat and rest together, and we train even harder together.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This time on "STEM-Works", we'll visit with the Reno Fire Department to explore the STEM careers and the skills they utilize in both firefighting and fire prevention.

Katie Walker investigates fires to learn how and why they happen.

Vanessa Sandoval provides medical assistance to those affected by a fire.

Recruit, Noah Urrutia, is learning the skills and techniques required to fight fire.

And veteran firefighter, David Rutherford, is training the next generation.

(upbeat music continues) - As a single role paramedic, we're here to back up our fire line personnel, but we also serve to the public.

If we need to, we will take a patient and transport them, but we're mainly there for if one of our fire guys go down.

- I'm a fire investigator.

So we do origin and cause.

If there's a fire, we go in and we try to figure out where it started and how it started.

- Our job is to teach 'em to be thinking firefighters.

We want you to be able to problem solve and adjust on the fly.

- The most valuable skill set we're learning is how to be firefighters and how to suppress fire.

- We teach 'em building construction.

We teach 'em fire hose management.

So they have to learn how to pull it, reload it, know where it's gonna land when they do pull it out, and then where they wanna go to.

So they gotta think ahead.

- We pretty much go into anywhere.

So, you know, sometimes vehicles catch on fire, homes, apartment complexes, businesses, outside.

It can be a campfire, it can be a brush fire.

- You have a crew cutting the roof, going in the windows, breaking open the doors to let some of the heat and smoke and steam out.

You have another crew that is gonna get water to the engine, so they'll go to the hydrant.

We'll discuss a game plan, who's grabbing tools maybe to open a door, which direction are they gonna go and how they're gonna help each other.

- If it's a working fire, investigators automatically get called out.

Sometimes it'll look suspicious and then we'll respond.

Typically, EMS is also going at the same time.

- Most of the time we are first on scene for patients that are needing help, we do get dispatched to fire calls as well, but we are just there for the medical side.

- We're here to show up and be present on people's worst day and do so efficiently and safely, not just for the people involved and victims, but for ourselves.

- Our model is based on time response, we wanna get there as soon as we can to handle the situation.

- Fires happen unfortunately, if we're able to determine why they started, we can prevent that from happening again and it just makes the community safer.

(upbeat music continues) - The first step for me was just identifying the best path and the most efficient way to get to here.

I talked to people, got to know people on the department, did station visits.

- We all have our basic training, but to be a single role on the EMS side, you have to have your paramedic certificate or your national registry.

So I did go through Truckee Meadows Community College to obtain that.

- I started as a wildland firefighter, when I was 19, and I fell in love with the fire service and I knew I wanted to be a part of the fire service.

- You come in as a cadet and you go through the trainings just like you're back in school, book work, drill grounds, tests, quizzes, all that kind of stuff.

- We're learning a variety of different fire skills, from hose management, rescue and search operations, vehicle extrication.

But next week we'll be moving into our wildfire management week.

- There's a panel that comes in, captains and chiefs from other departments, that puts you in situations, scenarios, and see how you handle that.

So it's a testing process, just like anything else.

- Once you get a job with Reno Fire Department, there is the National Fire Academy, back in Maryland, and there's a two week course.

They have burn cells.

They set up rooms the way a room would be set up and then they set it on fire and then you get to go in and see how the fire patterns were affected.

- We have to do clinical hours, which are hours in the emergency department, and you have to be able to do blood draws and medication administration, CPR classes, health classes, child development.

And then we have about, I believe it's 480 hours, on an ambulance that you have to complete.

(upbeat music continues) - I love showing up and working with my comrades in this academy every day.

It's a hardworking, dedicated group of individuals with a diverse set of backgrounds and skills, and it's great to get to know these people.

We sweat together, we eat and rest together, and we train even harder together.

- Well, the simple answer is it's the best job in the world.

You have a sense of accomplishment.

You go home knowing that you helped or you could have helped.

You're there most of the time as the good guy and you're trying to mitigate somebody else's problem.

- Growing up, I always wanted to get into the medical field and the paramedic kind of caught my eye, mainly because we're kind of doctor on wheels, if you will.

It's really up to us when we're in the field to determine what's best for the patient.

- It is really fun to tie my passion of working for the fire department to getting to do a science-based job.

I get to put the pieces together and solve the puzzle.

- The most exciting thing for me is seeing Reno Fire Department on the shield, on this helmet I get to wear every day we're on the fire grounds.

It was a long road to get here, and I'm incredibly proud to be at an early start and part of this fire department.

- It's awesome to see how these guys come in day one and then see how they are at the end.

I love to see that progression, I love to see people learn.

I love to go home with that satisfaction knowing that you poured into somebody else's life, and you helped them become a better individual.

- This is a great career to make my full-time career and be a bigger part of the community and something that's bigger than just ourself.

We're at about our 10th week right now, and the train's rolling along full steam and we're all hanging on and trying to pick up everything we can along the way.

- It's very exciting, you never know what you're gonna get, so that's what makes it interesting.

And they're very welcoming of everybody and they want us to succeed.

I'm very proud to say that I work for Rena Fire Department, I'm a paramedic.

(upbeat music continues) - Verbal communication is important because we talk a lot over the radio.

We have to be able to formulate our thoughts quickly because you have a short period of time to say something 'cause everybody else wants to talk.

- You're asking firefighters who first went in, you know, what did you see?

What it looked like when you showed up?

You need to see what the scene looks like as a whole.

One of the tools we use most is our camera.

We have to document what we see, and then it helps you remember when you go back and write your report, you can go back through your pictures.

- Sciences are really important, biology, chemistry, physics.

Somebody could have a good engineering background, construction background, and that can fit as part of that team with somebody else who has a good EMS background.

- I'm in medicine, so medicine works on the body and the physiology of the body.

So I have to know what medication that I'm giving to the patient, what it's gonna react on in the body.

Just taking simple vitals, knowing where to check a heart rate, make sure that they're breathing okay, their circulation's fine.

- Science is a huge part of doing fire investigation.

We actually follow the scientific method, that's going to the scene and looking at fire patterns, getting witness statements, and from there we're creating a hypothesis.

As we go in, we're looking from the least amount of damage to the most.

Typically, the most is where the area of origin is.

We're basically reversing the pattern of the fire to find where it started.

- Fire is a law of physics, and so even though fires may be different, you have different types of fires, car fire, dumpster fire, house fire, they all pretty much burn the same.

There is a chemical reaction that happened during that fire.

So if you understand that, you can understand how to get ahead of it, how to mitigate it, control that fire, and how to put it out.

- One of the coolest tools we use is Boston, our ignitable, liquid detection canine.

He can go into an area and he can smell if accelerant was used, and he will indicate, which is when he'll sit.

And so we know to take that sample and send it to the lab.

So then the lab will test to confirm that there was accelerant used.

- We're calculating stuff constantly, from the time we're pulling up on a scene to when we're going in, when we're determining our line sets, what we're pulling, pressures.

- There's a lot of math involved in that.

Each hose has a different friction loss.

It constricts the water, so the smaller the hose, the more you lose at the end of the hose coming through the hydrant.

(upbeat music continues) - Just expose yourself as much as you can, and always ask questions.

- Get involved as early as possible.

Don't be shy to try to come visit some Reno fire stations, see if you can schedule some ride alongs and get to know some of the people.

- We'll sit down and chat with you for a little bit and try to point you in the right direction and give you some advice.

- Get in there, meet the firefighters, talk to them, see what their day-to-day is actually like.

They're all gonna have different advice, everybody takes a different path.

- Reno Fire Department has an explorer program, they go out on simulated calls.

- You get to actually go to the burn tower that we have and run drills, and see what it's like to actually do what we do.

You know, there's so many avenues, it could be dispatch, it could be HR, it could be the clerk's office.

They run everything behind the scenes and allow us to do our jobs.

(upbeat music continues)