Wildfires and the firemen who fight it have become increasingly visible in the minds of everyone in Eastern Washington over the past few summers. Smoke hanging as a constant haze, fire alerts going off in surrounding areas have all become sad, but common occurrences. I live out in the countryside, surrounded by dry flammable fields of wheat, hay, and grass, so I spend a lot of time in late summer worrying about fire, thinking about what I would do if one ignited near us (one or two recent fires have been about 15 minutes away by car). I am immensely grateful for firefighters and the work they do. Now that we've had some rain to wet everything down, I thought this would be a good time to celebrate what they do by sketching down at Fire Station 1 in downtown Spokane. Thank you to Mark John and Brian Schaeffer and all the firefighters at the station for making me welcome!
I thought, with fire season winding down, that it would be fairly easy to do some sketching of the fire trucks when I visited, but the station was a hub of activity with trucks going out on call and returning. I managed to sneak in this quick sketch of part of the side of a fire truck-a bunch of mysterious knobs and levers, along with a coiled up fire hose, ready for deployment.
Luckily (for everyone!), the Hazmat truck wasn't deployed at all and I assumed myself painting this creative interpretation of a Hazardous Waste sign on the back of the truck.
This classic scene caught my eye-coats, bags, and helmets hanging on their hooks, ready to for the firemen to swing into action!
The firefighters came by to see what I was working on, and kindly pulled several pieces of rescue equipment out of one of the trucks to arrange it for me. Painting this got interrupted THREE times before I finished it (It usually takes me between 45 minutes to an hour and an half to do a sketch).