FGGAM received this news release from the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security.
The New Mexico State Fire Marshal’s Office (SFMO) and the New Mexico EMT Association are partnering for the 11th annual Fire and EMS Expo at the State Fire Academy October 23-27. The four-day expo will feature over 100 hours of classroom and hands-on training experiences, including live burns.
The Expo is designed to offer emergency services personnel with educational opportunities that reflect current fire and medical knowledge along with hands-on practice. The goal is to give attendees the tools needed to enhance and reinforce skills and knowledge critical for smooth and efficient on-scene operations. This year, 286 fire and EMS personnel are registered to participate in a total of 149 courses. This is the highest number of registrants, beating the previous record of 256 in 2022, with 103 courses offered.
Training sessions include structural firefighting, firefighter survival, flammable liquids and LPG firefighting, rope rescue, vehicle extrication and heavy vehicle extrication, first responder mental health, and EMS continuing education courses.
Media is invited to attend the flammable liquid burns session Thursday morning between 10 a.m. and noon or the liquefied petroleum gas burns class Thursday afternoon.
RSVP is required to attend. Please RSVP to danielle.silva@dhsem.nm.gov to coordinate your attendance.
Fireman’s Prayer
When I am called to duty, God
whenever flames may rage,
Give me the strength to save some life
Whatever be its age.
Help me to embrace a little child
Before it’s too late,
Or some older person
from the horror of that fate.
Enable me to be alert
And hear the weakest shout,
And quickly and efficiently
to put the fire out.
I want to fill my calling
and give the best in me,
To guard my neighbor
And protect his property.
And if according to Your will
I have to lose my life,
Please bless with Your protecting hand
My children and my wife
History of the Fireman’s Prayer
The only way he could find to ease the pain of such a tragedy was to sit down and put his thoughts on paper. The phrase, “enable me to be alert and hear the weakest shout”, sends a chill up a firefighter’s spine as you imagine what he experienced on that fateful night. It was a particularly tough time for him as he had young children around the same age.While most accounts of the Firemen’s Prayer conclude with Author Unknown, the world renowned poem was written by Firefighter A.W. “Smokey” Linn. As a young firefighter in 1958 Linn and his crew responded to a fire in which three children were trapped behind security bars and died in the fire.
His granddaughter, Penny McGlachlin said that back then there were no grief counselors to help the firefighters. Penny believes this was an actual prayer from him, to god for the sake of his own family, the other fireman, and the families of the children.
Smokey joined the Wichita, Kansas Fire Department in 1947 after returning from World War 2. He retired in 1975 and became president of the local chapter of the Good Sam Camping Club. He passed away March 31, 2004 of complications following surgery.
The Fireman’s Prayer was originally published in a book called, “A Celebration of Poets” in 1958. The last copyright of the book was 1998. It is the family’s desire that the credit for the Firemen’s Prayer go to the author, A.W. Smokey Linn.