Bobbie Scopa - Both Sides of the Fire Line: Memoir of a Transgender Firefighter

Copyright 2022 by Bobbie Scopa

All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-64160-808-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022935002

Typesetting: Nord Compo

Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1

This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

This book is dedicated to my amazing children,
Rebecca and Frank.

GO, GO, GO!

The fire burned rapidly uphill toward us, enveloping the brush and trees.

We were running for our lives.

Run, drop it, leave it! I screamed at the firefighter near me.

He had fallen behind as we ran up the fire line, dropping some of the medical equipment he was carrying. I watched as he struggled, scrambling, trying to pick it back up.

Leave it and just runnow!

I turned around to see what was happening. The fire chased him, coming fast in our direction. Less than a hundred feet away.

Drop it! Run! Run, now!

He turned around and saw the fire coming for us. Finally understanding the severity of the moment, he left the equipment and ran with me back up the hill, both of us desperate to find someplace safe.

I was the B-Shift captain at Fire Station 1. We were staffed with three firefighters on a paramedic fire engine company. It had been an ordinary day at Station 1. My crew had worked together for several years, and we had become quite close. Its what you like to see for a firefighting crew. That kind of closeness can help with communications and crew cohesion, which makes everyone safer and more efficient. We anticipated what the others were thinking and were going to do. It also made spending twenty-four-hour shifts together with the same coworkers day after day more enjoyable. Even though I was the captain and their boss, to some degree I felt like these guys were also my brothers. I always enjoyed going to work with my crew. We truly felt like a unit.

Going to work as a firefighter can be good fun. Every shift is the great unknown. You never know whats going to happen from one minute to the next. But its not all excitement and life-and-death emergencies. Some days you find yourself having to conduct fire prevention inspections. Thats where you inspect businesses for things like up-to-date fire extinguishers and blocked fire exits. Other days youre working on a routine project around the stationwaiting for, hoping for, anxious for an emergency call. Because thats why were firefighters: we like going on emergency calls. Its who we are.

Before you think that were horrible human beings for wanting there to be an emergencyarguably the worst day of someone elses lifewhile on duty, think about a surgeon who trains for years, but only ever gets to take out a splinter from someones finger. As a professional, the surgeon wants to be on duty when that emergency appendectomy needs to be performed. In the same manner, enthusiastic firefighters dont wish bad news for anyone. But, as I used to half-jokingly say, if someones house must burn down, please let it happen on B-Shift.

A common trait of firefighters is a short attention span. I dont mean to disparage the firefighting profession, but there is some truth to that statement. If you enjoy knowing on Sunday evening what youre going to be doing at work on Monday, you probably wont enjoy being a firefighter. The thing about being a firefighter is the work is constantly changing. If you dont like responding to a medical call, thats OK. Because as soon as the medical call is over, you may be responding to an auto accident or rescuing someone from a mountainside cliff or helping an elderly homeowner replace the batteries in their smoke detector. Its not for everyone, but for those of us who enjoy the spontaneity of never knowing whats next, the job is a dream.

In 1990 the population of the greater Prescott area where I worked was about fifty thousand people. Those people and their town were protected by a city and a county fire department. Prescott is nestled in a little valley surrounded by high mountain peaks within a national forest. Thirty years later, its still a beautiful and historic little place tourists flock to in the summer to escape the extreme heat down in Phoenix. It was a great place to live and raise a young family. We had a good life in Prescott. Constant and steady and a safe place for my children.

In June 1990 it was going to be hot for the next couple of days in the high country of Arizona. Temperatures were predicted to be in the high 90s. As a matter of fact, in Phoenix on June 26, the high temperature hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit. It had been a warm, rain-barren spring, and the vegetation was already dry as a bone around the Arizona high country. We were expecting that any fire ignition in northern Arizona could possibly result in a large wildfire. We were trained for wildfires as well as structure fires, since there was always an elevated threat of wildfire in our community.