Hi, I'm Larry's brother "Buzz". My interest in the fire service goes back to my childhood. I think maybe our interest came from our parents who could be known to follow the “rigs” during our young days and even get us up in the night to go to a fire they had heard about on the radio. I'm told that even before my second birthday I watched with fascination, held in my dad's arms, as the Haddorf Piano Factory, here in Rockford, burned in the late 40's. My first recollection of being at a fire scene, and taking the first photo, was at a fire on Broadway (here in Rockford) involving a F. W. Woolworth Store. The fire was actually over by the time we got there but I was still interested in the smoking ruins and the general chaos of the situation. As I grew up, my interest in the fire service grew and when I was old enough to drive, I started visiting various Rockford Fire Stations and even got a device which would allow me to receive fire calls through the AM radio in the car; far different from the multi-channel radios of today. To make a long story short, after graduating from Purdue University and working for a year in the family business, I decided I wanted a career in the fire service and returned to college at Oklahoma State University, where I got a degree in Fire Protection technology. After graduation, I worked in California for several years, living in Los Angeles and ultimately became the Fire Protection Consultant to the Philippine Government. My fire protection career has been very exciting and while I have basically retired, I stay active as the photographer for the Rockford Fire Department. If you visit this site regularly you have seen many of my fireground photos. I'm now able to get videos that I have taken over the years in analog format into my computer and get them edited for posting here on onlyREDtrucks. The first ones will be from the Philippines and they are representative of the fires I encountered over the years I spent there.
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