– The first six of two dozen new Miramar firefighters have joined the ranks this month as the Fire-Rescue Department gears up for staffing a fourth fire-rescue station.
When all the new firefighters are aboard in January the department’s total number of shift personnel should reach 100, said Capt. Chris Armstrong, the department’s training officer.
The six firefighters who were sworn in Nov. 10 replace people who retired or otherwise left the department. The 18 new employees to be hired in January are being brought on specifically to give the department sufficient personnel to staff the station under construction at the northwest corner of Miramar Parkway and 184th Avenue.
The station, which will be the westernmost fire station in Miramar, is not slated to open until March 1. However, the 18 new firefighters will be brought in earlier to complete the department’s six-week training program at the Broward Fire Academy in Davie, Armstrong said.
“We won’t put 18 new people at one station,” Armstrong said, noting that the new employees will be integrated into the staffing rotation.
Department officials are deciding which of 50 applicants who recently took written tests will be offered jobs. Starting salaries are about $35,000 a year for certified firefighter-paramedics, Armstrong said.
The six latest firefighters who were hired and recently completed the training program started work at the city’s three existing fire stations last week.
One of them, Sheri Lovejoy, 32, of Miami Lakes, had worked for the past 12 years giving facials and body treatments, most recently at Turnberry Isle Resort & Club in Aventura.
“What a career change, huh?” said Lovejoy, a mother of 7- and 9-year-old boys, who grew up in Clearwater. “I finally just took the dive and did what I wanted to do.”
Nathan Babrove, another new hire, is a 1990 graduate of Miramar High School who took a more traditional route to being a city firefighter-paramedic.
Babrove, 28, who now lives in Fort Lauderdale, said he has wanted to be a firefighter from as far back as he can remember. He spent the past two years as a paramedic with a private ambulance company.
The other new Miramar firefighters are Jorge Gonzalez, Timothy Hesler, Kevin Neugent and Paul Pelliccio.
“This group, in my opinion, and I think the other instructors would share that opinion, was a very enthusiastic and motivated group of employees,” said Armstrong, who was one of three primary instructors for the group. “They maintained a positive attitude throughout the program.”
The city’s westernmost fire-rescue station at present is Station 84, which opened in September 1995 on Northwest 148th Avenue just north of Miramar Parkway. The other two stations are in the 8900 block of Miramar Parkway, next to police headquarters, and in the 6700 block of Miramar Parkway, behind City Hall.
