35.Mike Fire Photography.
About:
This all started when I was an Explorer with a Volunteer Fire Department in the town I grew up in New York. I would go to the firehouse every Monday night with my dad to check out the rigs. Both of my parents volunteered with the Department and received multiple awards for running the most calls and making saves. The Fire Department is something that I have been around and loved for many years. I joined the Marine Corps in 2011 as a Military Police Officer. I was stationed in Okinawa Japan, and Camp Pendleton. I was at Camp Pendleton for about 6 months when a very large fire broke out on the Naval Weapons Station bordering the base. This was the first time I had ever seen up close a large fire like this. The fire was the Tomahawk Fire and it burned a total of 5,400 acres. The following day multiple fires broke out and became the Basilone Complex. I escorted Fire Units from multiple agencies from the Las Pulgas gate to the staging area at Lake O'niell. I took a bunch of photos on my phone over the next 5 days while I worked the incident from the Police side and it was something I enjoyed very much.
My patrol car blocking Las Pulgas road. May 15 2014
Fast forward to why I take Photos and Dispatch now. I was medically separated from the Marine Corps due to having Multiple Sclerosis. I have had this since about 2012 and was untreated until 2015 when I lost normal functioning of my right side. I loved taking photos and I have a love for Emergency Services. I saw these photos of FireFighters on these large wildfires in my area and started researching how to start taking such photos. I had my camera, a scanner, and a cell phone with Pulsepoint and started going to calls that sounded like it was something worthy to take photos of. I continued doing this, networking with people and it really was a good way to take my mind off the fact that I am not able to do my dream job anymore. It all has rolled down hill from there and here I am.