BURBANK : 17 Graduates Sworn In as Firefighters

When it was all over, the 17 new graduates from Burbank’s firefighter training program gave each other high-fives and embraced while about 200 friends and family members applauded and cheered.

But then, before they could celebrate the start of their new careers, the sweat-soaked freshmen firefighters had to turn around and clean up the mess left by a demonstration of their newfound skills.

As part of the Burbank Fire Department’s 1994 graduation ceremony Friday, the recruits extinguished a burning car, doused a four-story inferno and conducted a simulated rescue.

It was the conclusion of an intense 10-week training program in which the recruits’ physical and mental stamina, as well as their personal relationships at home, were constantly tested. But after being sworn in and issued their badges and belt buckles, they said it was worth the strain.

“It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do in life, but once I decided I wanted to be a firefighter there was nothing else,” said Edmondo St. Cyr, 30, the only African American among the recruits. “It’s unexplainable, the good feeling you get when you do this type of work.”

Like St. Cyr, who previously worked as an Alhambra firefighter, all but one of the recruits had previous firefighting experience, mostly as volunteer or part-time firefighters. They ranged in age from 21 to 32, and their prior careers ranged from cabinetmaker to surfboard shop manager.

Burbank Fire Chief Mike Davis said more than 2,000 people applied when the Fire Department announced it was recruiting 19 firefighters last year. Through a long process of written, oral, medical and psychological exams, the department pared the pool down to 19 recruits, one of whom dropped out before the training course began and another who failed to complete it.

Davis said the graduates will increase the department’s ranks to 125 firefighters--a level from which it had dipped in recent years due to attrition. The department normally fills individual vacancies by hiring experienced firefighters, and only recruits and trains new ones when there is a greater need, he said.

“This was our first graduating class since 1992, when we had four new firefighters in our class,” Davis said. “This is an exceptionally high quality group. We were very fortunate to have people with so much prior firefighting experience.”

While the recruits gave different reasons for wanting to become firefighters--ranging from serving the public to the thrill of fighting the flames--at least three were following in the footsteps of their fathers.

Some of the fathers were on hand for the ceremony.

“When he was a little boy he used to play with my uniform,” Bill Garland, a Los Angeles County firefighter, said of his son Matt, a 23-year-old recruit. “He always wanted to be a firefighter, but he got real serious about it about three years ago.”

Each of the graduates has already been assigned to one of Burbank’s five fire stations and many of them were scheduled to start their first shifts today. But David Burke, 23, said he feels as if he’s been on the job ever since he started at firefighters’ boot camp 10 weeks ago.

“It was during the dead of summer,” he said. “We did our drills in the morning, then we had lectures and training all afternoon, then we’d go home and have up to six hours of homework every night. It was hard, but we all pulled together and we did it.”