Firefighters do a job that very few actually see. We all know what they do, but we rarely get to see how they do their job, especially through their eyes. That was until Highland Park firefighter Scott Ziegler, 27, published an eight-minute montage of the fires he fought in 2012.
It all started when he received a camera for Christmas in 2011. Ziegler, a firefighter for nine years, then decided to attach the camera to his helmet and let it operate on nearly every run he made with the Highland Park Fire Department. The video, which is made up of 100 different computer files, was published on YouTube on Tuesday, Jan. 1. By mid-day on Jan. 3, the video had more than 6,000 views, soon after the video went viral across the web after being shared on Twitter and Facebook. It was also featured on sites like Gawker, The Huffington Post and Gizmodo. The video currently stands at more than 727,000 views, nearing 1 million.
Ziegler told Deadline Detroit that while he’s a little uncomfortable with all the personal attention, he made the video to show people the lives firefighters live.
“The recognition is awesome,” Ziegler said Sunday night. “I want people to know what firefighters do. The more people who know that the better it is for us.”
From Deadline Detroit:
Ziegler, 27, has been a firefighter for nine years, four of them in Highland Park, which, like its neighbor, Detroit, is plagued with abandoned structures and burns more than most cities in America.
One of the buildings seen on fire in Ziegler’s video is the old, condemned Highland Park fire headquarters off of Woodward. It was an apparent arson.
“The fire went up the hose tower,” Ziegler said. “We went in through an upstairs window and did what we could.”
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“The guys I work with are incredible and work under some of the toughest conditions,” Ziegler told Deadline Detroit. “Six guys” — on a shift — “responding to multiple fires is unheard of.”
If you haven’t watched the video yet, definitely give it a watch, it’s a great look in to what life as a firefighter is really like.
What do you think of the video? Tell us in the comments!
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