An unfinished cigarette sparked Paul Latreille's career in fire protection.
It was the reason behind a fire that nearly burned down his childhood home.
Nobody was hurt, and the fire only damaged the basement. But the experience
shaped Latreille for the rest of his life.
"I was kind of interested in the fire," he says. "I didn't start it
or anything."
It first pushed him towards firefighting, but soon led him into a career
in fire protection and prevention. He currently heads an office a fire protection
consulting company.
In that capacity, he handles a number of tasks. He designs specifications
for sprinklers, fire alarms and smoke alarms. He also handles daily correspondence
with engineers, architects, owners, developers and city officials. This part
of his job requires an immense amount of paperwork because the fire protection
industry is very heavily regulated, he says.
So Latreille spends about 50 percent of his time in the office. Thankfully,
he gets to spend the other 50 percent away from the office, inspecting and
supervising projects.
"So you are not in the office all day, which is a major benefit for me,"
he says. He holds a fire protection engineering and safety technician diploma.
Shannon Arnold also graduated from a technical college with a diploma in
fire protection. But her routine and daily tasks are quite different than
Latreille's.
Arnold graduated from Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin more than
a decade ago. She is now a lieutenant with the fire department in Appleton,
Wisconsin, a community of 70,000. Arnold says she enrolled at Fox Valley Technical
because she wanted to do something that was going to be challenging.
"I wanted something where I didn't have to sit behind a desk," she
says.
Her formal education as a fire protection technician and a summer internship
with the Appleton department also introduced her to the principles of firefighting.
So sometimes she is fighting fires. Other times she is trying to prevent them
through public outreach programs and inspections.
This part of the job requires her to enforce local standards and codes,
and may create some tense moments. But that has not been the case yet, Arnold
says. She says the public is quite receptive towards her and her colleagues
because most people want to know how they can prevent fires.
"So I never really had a rough encounter [while on inspection]," she says.
Arnold's working hours also vary. Weekend work is not uncommon, and fires,
well, they can happen any time.
She also has to spend a part of her week in training, where she learns
about potential new fire sources, how to fight them and how to prevent them.
You will actually find many officers like Arnold in smaller fire departments.
They rarely hire fire protection technicians who come straight out of technical
colleges, says John Vokes. He is a former firefighter.
"I think they are good programs," he says. "I certainly wouldn't fault
them. The question that goes through my mind is, where do these people end
up?"
Vokes is now the director of an institute that offers a 700-hour training
course in fire prevention. All of the current students entered the program
with recommendations from local fire chiefs, he says. "It's certainly
a benefit if [you] understand fire chemistry, fire behavior and fire travel."
Ironically, fire protection technicians and firefighters may not be on
the best terms. "Quite often, there is a virtual conflict between fire suppression
people and fire prevention people," says Vokes. "One virtually works in conflict
with the other."
So what would Vokes say to somebody who is interested in fire protection
and prevention? "It can have its rewards," he says. "But you don't see
very many fire prevention people profiled on the front page of your daily
newspaper. But you do see an awful lot of pictures of your fire suppression
people. So it's not a glory job."
One thing is for sure, though. It can be a well-paying career, especially
if you have a background in fire protection engineering.
Money, however, did not motivate Maria Queirolo. She worked
as a social worker before she decided upon engineering. "I wanted to go into
engineering in the past, but it was not female-friendly at the time, nor did
I feel it met my need to help society at that time," she says.
"When I decided that social work was not what I wanted, I decided upon
engineering. Fire protection met the bill as it is beneficial to society and
I could still care for people at a more remote level."