Q&A: Mendota Heights Fire Chief John Maczko

The is looking for new recruits. Patch volleyed a few questions at Mendota Heights Fire Chief John Maczko to learn more about becoming a firefighter for the department, which serves Mendota Heights, Mendota, Lilydale and Sunfish Lake. Maczko, who has been a firefighter for 33 years with Mendota Heights, encouraged those interested to start the process by filling out an application and bringing it to .

Mendota Heights Patch: How many firefighters are you looking for?

MHFD Chief John Maczko: At this point we don’t know how many it will be. … It depends on how many people will retire. We have one retiring and we may have a second one so we thought we’d like to have a test of the market and see what’s out there.

Patch: What makes a good firefighter?

Maczko: Someone with a passion to help others. A self-motivator. We spend way more time training for a disaster or something that may never happen, and they really have to be motivated and want to get training, want to help others, want to be prepared, and then be willing to step up when the time comes.

Patch: What is the time commitment?

Maczko: The first two years it’s pretty intense. You usually start in the fall with firefighter training—“Firefighter 1” and “Firefighter 2” training. That’s about 80 hours. There’s a hazardous materials training, that’s another 48; and first-responder training, that’s another 40. All that has to be completed in the first two years in addition to the commitments to the fire department, which are basically a one-hour meeting once a month; a training with their squad that’s basically three hours, once a month; and then a department training where the whole department trains together once a month. So it’s about 10 hours of committed time to training and administration per month plus response to any emergencies.

Patch: What’s the application process like?

Maczko: We’ll hold a general orientation session with prospective applicants, anybody that’s interested, kind of a question-and-answer, about 90 minutes long. We explain what it’s like to be a fire fighter, answer any questions. We encourage spouses to come along because in a paid on-call department it’s pretty much a family commitment. So we start there.

Then we encourage people that if they want to continue to apply. Once they apply we run a physical agility test basically to test two things. One is kind of an obstacle course. We put people in our turnout equipment, breathing apparatus and cover the mask, basically we’re testing for claustrophobia. And the second part of it (tests) a fear of heights. We put the ladder truck up and make them climb to the top of the ladder without getting white knuckles and come back down because those are the two things, there’s nothing we can do, we can’t train you, we can’t do anything. If you can’t do that, that’s our bread and butter. So then we have a … written evaluation and then we do an oral interview.

Patch: Do you have any rituals or traditions for new recruits?

Maczko: We do have the ceremony with their families when they do get on the department. At the retirement dinner, our annual awards banquet, they get badges and recognized for their years of service. Basically in their first year or two they’re in the probationary status.

Patch: Are women welcome to apply? Are there women in the department?

Maczko: Yes. Absolutely. We have three now.