- Wow!

There are so many trucks here.

I don't think I've ever been this close to a firetruck before.

Believe it or not, this fire station is part of an airport.

(plane flying) (country music) - He's a little heavy, so he's...

There he goes.

- Down the sides of the aircraft to the wing.

- Hi there, I'm Chrisena and we are at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

Today, we are going behind the scenes to meet some of the folks who keep this airport running.

Let's go!

♪ Let's go, let's go, let's go ♪ ♪ Let's go ♪ (singer giggles) The Buffalo Niagara International Airport plays an essential role in the region and has up to 100 nonstop flights per day, serving 31 airport destinations and international travelers.

We are visiting the Airfield and Fire Station to learn how it all comes together.

Hi there.

- Hi, I'm Scott Seib, Assistant Chief of the Buffalo Airport Fire Department.

Welcome to our firehouse.

So in total there are 41 firefighters.

We are a family, we call it a firehouse for a reason 'cause we're living together.

We do cook some meals together, we spend a lot of our holidays away from our families together.

So you are really living with another whole family.

So our tours are two, 10 hour day shifts, two, 14 hour night shifts.

Then if you're lucky, you're off for four days to recuperate a little bit.

So when a firefighter comes into the station in the morning, one of the things they have to do is prep for the day and I'll put my coat and helmet wherever is most convenient for me.

(cool jazz music) This is the fleet of trucks we have.

We have our crash vehicles that are predominantly aircraft rescue and firefighting.

- Now what is going on over here?

Look at all these buttons.

- So this is where the operator of the truck is going to get water put into the truck, either from a fire hydrant along the street, or maybe another one of the big fire trucks may come up and give its tank water to it.

- What do the different colors of hose mean?

- So we like to identify the hose by a color.

So if you're inside working the fire and I need them to shut down the hose or add more pressure and water to it, I can just tell them a color.

So, "Shut down the orange hose.

Shut down the purple hose."

The blue hose, if you notice, is actually a little bit bigger.

That'll flow a lot more water than this hose right here.

- So is it really hard to hold it steady when the water's going through the hose?

- Yeah, it takes a little bit of work to hold it in place.

We pump these hoses about 170 pounds pressure, and you get at least half of that trying to force the nozzle back at you so you've got to stand your ground and hold it.

(airplane flying) So these are our cutter and spreader unit.

So what we use them for is to cut people out of cars or we've used them in building collapses and different things like that as well.

At our airport, our specialized rescue we do will be confined space that's crawling into manholes, into pipes and stuff under buildings, and things like that.

Some airport fire departments also do high angle and low angle rescues, water rescues, and ice rescues.

(power cutters revving) - [Joe] Good morning, Chrisena, how are you today?

- Hi Joe, good morning.

I'm doing very well, how are you?

- Good, thank you.

You ready for a tour of the airfield?

- I sure am.

- All right, hop in please.

- Let's go.

- [Joe] All right.

- [Traffic Control] Two alpha cross two, threes then left on alpha cross, going to one, four to the end.

Traffic 81, 75 mile sign-off runway, two-three.

He's about five minutes out.

(walkie-talkie bleeps) - Okay, great, thank you.

- Joe, what do you call the language, the codes that you're using over the walkie-talkie?

- So it's basically the aviation alphabet, it's...

So Alpha Bravo, Charlie, Delta and so forth, that's the aviation terminology.

- [Traffic Control Two] Base for runway, two-three.

- [Traffic Control] (indistinct) 47, 38, Buffalo tower number two, runway two-three for the land, one, two, four, zero, six.

- [Traffic Control Three] Number two, two, three.

- [Traffic Control] Clear to land for 247, 38.

- That helps slow around the aircraft.

So basically if you land, if you depart out of here, see these markings?

These are threshold markings, that's the runway designation marking the one, four.

These are the center line markings, you got the white edge line markings, they're all the same in every country in the world.

So that obviously it enhances safety by having the same system in place.

My main goal and objective is to ensure a safe, secure, and efficient airfield operation and to instill in my staff that same mindset.

And one of the main things I say to them almost on a daily basis is, how did you do your job today?

Did you perform it in such a manner that if your family was on the next aircraft to land here, are you comfortable what you did that, that aircraft's safe to land?

Especially this winter we had, you know, 51 inches of snow and my staff risked their lives to save others.

We had blinding snow, you couldn't see the hand in front of your face.

I had closed the airport 'cause it was the only thing we had to do.

It was about 120 people stranded and literally nobody lost their lives, thank God, 'cause of their actions.

- [Chrisena] It's incredible.

- Yeah, it was very proud of my staff for what they did.

Tower Airport, three plus one, we're going to exit at Papa here.

Possibly in front of us, you'll see the nose gear go up depending upon how heavy he is.

- Oh, here he comes.

- Yes, so he's the nose gear... (airplane ascending) Not yet.

He's a little heavy, so he's...

There he goes.

(airplane flying) - That was so cool!

That was so loud!

- Yeah, that's, yeah.

- How fast does that plane have to go to get off the ground?

- So there's a formula, it depends on the weight, how much fuel he has, how many people.

Between 150 and 180 miles an hour, probably a little faster than that, yeah, - [Chrisena] That's fast.

- [Joe] Yeah.

- Earlier you were mentioning all of the people that it takes to keep this airport running, what are some of those jobs?

- We have jobs from airfield operator, so you're basically an equipment operator, you'll drive all the snow plows, all kinds of various types of equipment.

You drive a farm tractor cutting the big grass areas we have out here.

I have electricians who work for me.

We have fuel farm technicians who run our fuel farm.

We have also mechanics, it's a vital job they have because they work on the fire trucks.

They work on our snow equipment to keep everything up and running to keep us safe.

- So this is almost like its own little city.

- Oh yeah, it is.

- Operating here.

- Yeah, for sure.

- Okay, here we go.

(airplane whooshing) (country music) - So this is our primary aircraft rescue firefighting truck.

We call it F4.

- This is the biggest tire I've ever seen in my life.

- There's some pretty big tires on this truck.

Want to see what the cab's like?

- [Chrisena] Yes.

- All right.

One foot there and why don't you climb right into the driver's seat.

- Don't mind if I do.

- So we talked a little bit on the other firetruck, how we use...

The guys have the hoses in their hands.

Well, in here we actually use the joysticks to run the hoses.

They're actually a nozzle in your bumper here and you have another one up here on the roof.

(nozzle rotating) - [Chrisena] Oh!

- [Firefighter] Okay F4, are we following you?

- So right now, we're going to our training plane.

Its name is Ginger, it was donated to us by FedEx probably 12 years, 10, 12 years ago.

They took the engines off it, emptying some fuel out of it and allowed us to use it to go up and simulate anytime we want to train.

So if we were going to cut a rescue path on this aircraft and they're exiting through this door over here and say the fire's on the wing, this is the pilot side of the aircraft, (firetruck engine revving) we would want to position off out here somewhere.

We would engage our pump (pump bleeps) and we'll go with the rough dirt for now, (water spraying) I'm going to cool the plane and what we would do is if the slide's coming out that door, we're going to cut a path between the slide and the people coming off and that plane.

So let's aim for the door- - [Chrisena] Okay.

- And work back and down along the lane.

- Okay, aim for the door... - Just pull the trigger.

Pull the trigger and it'll take it a second.

So you're coming off the bumper, go- - [Chrisena] Okay so I want to go... - [Scott] Up a little bit, now go right along, down the side of the aircraft to the wing.

- [Chrisena] To the wing?

(Chrisena laughs) I did it!

I saved everyone, everyone's safe now.

(country music) What is life like as a first responder?

- You are in an inherently dangerous job.

There are inherent risks that we have to take.

We try and do things as safely as possible to make sure we go home to our families and everyone else goes home that we're trying to help.

- How do you deal with the stress?

- So having the fellow firefighters and we have stress teams we can bring out and talk to in emergencies like that, that we can... And they're all first responders, they're police officers, they're firefighters, there's nurses, doctors, they all do this, they understand it so it's easy to talk to them.

And I've always loved being a firefighter and a first responder so this allowed me to bring both of them together.

We get to go out and train on aircraft all the time.

I get to see military, civilian, all sorts of different aircraft, planes, helicopters coming in here.

We do all the same jobs as the firefighter coming from down the street at your normal residence but we add in the component of dealing with airplanes.

- I am in awe of all of the ways that people work together to make an airport run.

They serve our community and rely on each other to get the job done.

I bet you can think of times when you relied on others to make something work.

Well, I'm going to go journal about where I want to visit next and I'm going to think about all of the roads, and the systems, and the vehicles, and the technology, and the people that make transportation possible.

See you next time and a special thank you to all of the first responders out there.

Safe travels.

(cheerful music)