Erik Jueden named Burbank’s Firefighter of the Year

City officials this week recognized Burbank Fire Capt. Erik Jueden as Firefighter of the Year, citing his hand in upgrading the city’s fire equipment, developing training programs and designing new brush jackets and turnouts for the department.

Jueden joined the Burbank Fire Department more than two decades ago as a firefighter after spending two years volunteering for the Montebello Fire Department. During one of those years, he also volunteered with the Chino Valley Independent Fire District.

He pursued fire service after a survey he took in high school suggested it was a career path he might enjoy.

After seven years as a firefighter in Burbank, he was promoted to engineer, a post he held for five years before he was promoted to captain.

In recent years, while the department has had to adjust to budget cuts, Jueden has helped come up with training initiatives that saved money while maintaining the quality of service.

He’s currently studying to become a state-certified master instructor, which will allow him to train Burbank’s firefighters in-house in urban search and rescue, which includes rescuing individuals from a collapsed building or trench.

Though these types of calls aren’t all that frequent, they’re risky.

Jueden is also overseeing the process of preparing Burbank’s fire training center to become a state-certified facility.

While the initiative is in its initial phases, eventually, in-house instruction will reduce costs by allowing the agency to hold training exercises while firefighters are already at work rather than sending them out of town and having to backfill their shifts, Jueden said.

“We’re always trying to better ourselves, to better the department, so that we can provide a better service,” Jueden said. Everything, he said, “is always done with the public in mind.”

Jueden also identified a need for better departmental training when dealing with electrical wires during residential structure fires.

This year, Jueden helped design new firefighting uniforms that the department was able to purchase using grant funds, and he helped research and purchase new helmets.