Meet Your Volunteer Firefighter

Here’s Sheila Harley with this month’s firefighter…

Michelle Stringer – Sheila Harley photo

Michelle Stringer, FF1, is one of our newest firefighters. The first thing she did in her training was learn to be a wildlands firefighter. Hence her acquaintance with Smokey the Bear.

She grew up a “Navy brat” and has lived all over the country spending much of that time in Philadelphia where she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Physical Therapy from The University of the Sciences.

After graduation, Michelle lived in Seattle where she worked at Harborview Medical Center three days a week and at Providence Hospital in Everett two days a week.

She and her partner, Katie , who has since become a member of our Logistics Team, travelled to San Juan Island looking for wedding venues and saw a house that they loved and from there, they say, is history.

Michelle interviewed and obtained a position with Joyce Thomson at Islanders Physical Therapy and moved here soon after. While with a patient one day, the patient suggested she sign up for the Wildlands Training class which was starting soon. So she did and quite liked it so went on to become a structural firefighter as well.

She has enjoyed learning a whole new skill set in becoming a firefighter. “Its exhilarating!”, she says. Michelle is also learning things about herself in that she can do a lot of things she never thought of doing. Firefighting is helping her to become assimilated into our community and not to be just an anonymous face among the people living on our island. She wants to be a truly contributing member of this community.

After a recent drill in which the fire department was given a small building to burn for practice, Michelle went right up to the owner and thanked him for “letting us burn his building down”. She is a born diplomat!

After Michelle gets some time as a firefighter under her helmet, she would very much like to further her experience by becoming an officer.

“If you have any hint of desire to become an volunteer fifefighter come and try it out. If you decide you don’t like it you can leave, nobody is going to make you stay. But chances are you are going to fall in love with it.”

San Juan Island Fire Rescue welcomes all interested men and women, ages 16 years of age and over to drop by the Mullis Street station and make an appointment to see what we are all about. Or, look online at www.sjif.org for lots of goood information. Our phone number is 360-378-5334. We would be happy to talk with you.

You can support the San Juan Update by doing business with our loyal advertisers, and by making a one-time contribution or a recurring donation.