‘It’s 150 years in service and you look inside, and the modern fire trucks in there is just a little bizarre.’

Jackson Stewart is a student at Waukesha County Technical College and a second-year Fire and EMT program participant. He visited Milwaukee Fire Station 27 to learn how the station operates and explore his goal of becoming a firefighter. A Milwaukee native who no longer lives in the city, Stewart returned for a day to take part in the Doors Open Milwaukee event.

Deegan Norris: Why do you want to become a firefighter?

Jackson Stewart: I think it would fit my lifestyle in the future. I like the work schedule and I like how it’s a community. Some people have jobs and it’s kind of just a job and you don’t really do anything, but I have some experience shadowing for other fire stations and you see how people act. You all cook together, you all play video games together, you all work out together. And it’s a community that I’m looking for, and I think that is a great basis to start a career. My grandpa also was a firefighter for a little bit and I was pretty inspired by him to pursue this. I also remember in freshman year, I didn’t really know what to do careerwise. I thought about going to a four-year school, but I didn’t succeed very well in the traditional classroom. So that’s when I wasn’t sure if I could do this another four years on top of high school. So Greendale offers a dual enrollment type thing through WCTC. I actually went to WCTC to get EMT certified in high school, which really accelerated this.

Deegan Norris: What other fire stations have you shadowed for? Is there anything different about those stations compared to Fire Station 27?

Jackson Stewart: I’ve shadowed for Greendale and Greenfield in Milwaukee County. Specifically Greendale, I think it was built in the last 10 years. Even though Greendale is a smaller community, it’s a police department and fire department combined type thing. Just touring this fire station, it is significantly smaller than Greendale, which I found interesting because Greendale really is not too big of a community to have a fire station comparatively big to the one I just saw.

Deegan Norris: Why did you pick to this fire station specifically?

Jackson Stewart: I picked this fire station specifically because, for Open Doors Milwaukee, I saw the event was happening and I like Milwaukee a lot. Both my parents are from here, and I don’t really live around town anymore, so I wanted to come back for a day and tour some places. I chose this because I have the opportunity to see something that I’m passionate about. I live in Dousman, Wisconsin, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s basically right between Milwaukee and Madison, and It’s around 40 minutes to get here. But both my parents are from here and we all came together just to spend the day and check some stuff out.

Deegan Norris: Was there anything that you learned today from this fire station that you didn’t know before?

Jackson Stewart: Yeah, I learned that this fire station is 150 years in service, which really gives me perspective on how everything’s changed. It’s 150 years in service and you look inside and it’s like the modern fire trucks in there, which is just a little bizarre because you would think that it would be out of service at this point. It’s just funny seeing the modern equipment in there and the modern stuff in such an old building. And it gave me perspective on how nice things are now. It’s a lot different from Greendale; the Greendale one is probably double what this is. I want to say there’s around three or four garages with the trucks, the ambulances and some cop cars stored back there. And here, you look inside and it’s just two fire trucks and it’s just interesting to know that it’s even still in service.