Mike Davis, firefighter
Bank One Forest Park (3:05 p.m.): It may be less than a foot square, but Mike Davis and fellow Forest Park firefighter Julie Stanley work the smoldering patch of mulch as if it could turn into a full-fledged fire. They till soil around the tree and douse it with water until the smoke stops.
It's a non-emergency response for Engine 42. With no sirens or flashing lights, it's excruciatingly routine. Someone must have thrown a cigarette butt into the landscaped area along the Bank One drive-through on Northland Boulevard. There were no flames, but the grass surrounding the mulch is tinder dry, so who knows what might have happened.
"A mulch fire could turn into something big," says Davis, 21, climbing out of his bunker pants a few minutes later, back at the Forest Park Fire Department station.
They can't take any chances.
Davis, who grew up in Roselawn and now lives in Forest Park, has been working for the fire department for three months.
"I'm lovin' it," he says.
He likes the flexibility of his schedule, which gives him time to minister as a Jehovah's Witness.
"My natural tendency is to help people," says Davis.
"And that's what we do," he says. "Our business is public safety."