Fire-Rescue 59: My Mid-Life Crisis as a Volunteer Firefighter-EMTMost firefighters join the fire service when they are young their teens or early twenties. Alan Knoche was an exception in that he joined when he was in his late thirties. He had a lot of catching up to do, but with life experiences in the Navy, the submarine service, and working at a nuclear power facility behind him, he quickly progressed from rookie to assistant fire chief. A top responder in a volunteer fire department that answered an average of