Columbia firefighters prepare Thanksgiving meal while on duty
Erika McGuire
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
While families get to spend the Thanksgiving holiday at home, others like firefighters at the Columbia Fire Department have to spend the holiday on the clock.
At CFD’s Fire Station No. 1 on Orr Street in downtown Columbia, the crew teams up to fight fires, and on Thanksgiving morning, they teamed up in the kitchen to prepare a holiday meal for themselves and their families.
“Couple hams in the oven, some green bean casserole, gingerbread cookies, some banana pudding, apple pie,” firefighter Callan Whitehouse said.
Cpt. Derek Abbott has been with CFD for more than 12 years and has spent several Thanksgivings at the fire station. He said he’s thankful for the sense of family.
“At CFD, the overarching theme of our agency is that we’re all a family. The folks that work here, our immediate family can come and visit us. And you know the people we serve, they are part of the community we served in and that kind of goes in that same theme were here to survive and thrive,” Abbott said.
While working on Thanksgiving can result in missing time with family, Abbott says his family and his crew make the sacrifice easier.
“My wife and kids all really kind of understand the role that I play at the fire department and realize that it’s just something that has to happen. So they get it when I’m not around for the holidays,” Abbott said. “My family here at work, they welcome me and make sure that we’re all you know together and treat kind of the same,”
Thursday was firefighter Jeffrey Vance’s first Thanksgiving with CFD. While he was unable to spend the holiday with his fiancé, he’s grateful for the chance to build a bond with his fellow firefighters.
“It brings that brotherhood, sisterhood in which are crews and families just getting to spend time with them on the holidays, it’s kind of like you know the big part of the family thing,” Vance said.
While firefighters are able to carve time to eat a Thanksgiving meal with their families, a meal is a race against time since a call can come in at anytime, so they are ready to respond whenever help is needed.
“Obviously we’re still available to respond to calls at any point, so if the tones go off we still have to go respond to an emergency for anybody else,” Whitehouse said.
“If we have to run to a call we do that, there’s always people that can step up and finish the turkey or make the stuffing,” Abbott said. “We can always kind of just help each other out,”
For Abbott, he’s thankful this Thanksgiving for the family he found at Fire Station No. 1.
“I just started with this crew. So this year, I’m thankful they allowed me to come in and join their family. They’re great firefighters and they’re great people and it’s really to be bale to come to work and have a ready made family that I get to be a part of” Abbot said.