After 23 years with the Fort Dodge Fire Department, Loren Helgevold is retiring this November.

It won’t necessarily be easy for him.

“Living with these guys for 23 years, it’s kind of hard to leave. We are here 24 hours a day,” Helgevold said. “So it’s going to be hard to leave, but my body’s telling me it’s time to go. Both my knees are shot, my elbows are shot, I’m losing the hearing in my left ear from the siren.

“It’s not an old man’s game anymore. It’s a young man’s game.”

Helgevold said he got his start a little later than most – joining the department at age 34, when most of the new firefighters these days are 22 or so.

He said he decided to become a fireman after losing his oldest son Lucas to an illness.

“He was 19 months old,” Helgevold said. “He died six days before Christmas. So I decided then I wanted to be a fireman and help people. If I could save one family from going through something like that, it would be worth it.”

Over his career, Helgevold has indeed saved some lives. He’s even delivered two babies.

“That was kind of cool,” he said. “One of them, we got there and this gal was sitting on the toilet. We had to yank her off the toilet, and she didn’t want to go. We got her on the floor and in an upstairs room, and we had the kid right there.

“The other one, we got there just after the kid was born, and we had to take care of it, clamp the cord and all that. Those are the good times.

“The ones that stick with you are the good ones. The good outcomes,” he said. “Sometimes they come down and thank you. That’s what keeps driving you forward. Because a lot of times calls like that don’t end good, but when they do it’s really cool.”

His very first fire was just his first or second day on the job, when some insulation caught fire in the building across the street from the department.

A much bigger challenge came when the Eilers Hotel burned down in 1994.

“The Eilers hotel was a big one. That was not long after I started,” he said. “It was really cold. It was mostly defensive. We (worked) from the outside; nobody was inside.

“We were there for days. I remember just sitting in the middle of the street with a couple guys spraying water. We got froze to the street.”

The job is never easy, but one incident Helgevold remembers specifically is when he got tangled up in a burning attic.

“It was an attic fire somewhere, and I was crawling through there and got tangled up in some wires. That kind of freaked me out,” he said. “With all the stuff, it’s easy to get tangled. It took me a minute or so to get loose.

“I started carrying wire cutters with me after that, just in case.

“You can’t see 2 feet in front of you when you’re going in. You are just relying on you and your partner.”

Those on the lines rely on others working the truck to keep the water flowing, when even a short drop in pressure can be disastrous. Helgevold recalls being in that situation once.

“Something happened and we couldn’t get water. Oh man it was hot,” he said. “You have to back out, after you’ve been spraying it, and the water converts to steam. I don’t know if we had a kink in the hose or what.”

Helgevold worked at an auto store before he joined the department. He’s still there on his days off, even though he works 24-hour shifts at the fire station.

“We work a day, off a day; work a day, off a day; work a day, off four. It’s called a California swing,” he said. “So basically we work three out of every nine days, but 24 hours at a time.”

He was inspired by his father, also.

“My dad was a police officer in town for 26, 27 years,” Helgevold said. “He always told me I didn’t want to be a cop.”

When he started, most of the training was done in-house, and he had to be trained as an EMT.

When further training was available, Helgevold decided to take it voluntarily.

Today, he said new firefighters have two years after they’re hired to become a paramedic.

“They offered it to any of the older guys if we wanted to upgrade our skills,” Helgevold said. “It was hard work. It had been 30-some years since I’d been in school. And to get into the study habits, it was a change for sure.”

That was a big deal, said Fire Chief Kent Hulett.

“I give him a lot of credit for that,” Hulett said. “It’s equivalent to a two-year college degree. For him to volunteer, no one said, ‘Loren, you have to take this.’ It’s just good for the sake of providing better service to the community. I really appreciate Loren stepping up like that.

“I hate to lose a firefighter with his experience and credentials.”

After spending so much time at the fire house, the other firefighters become a second family.

“There isn’t anything anyone here wouldn’t do for each other. We’re always watching each other’s back. Especially when we’re going in on a fire,” Helgevold said. “You watch out for each other, make sure you get the job done and come home safe.”

He said it’s been hard sometimes to be gone that much, and he’s thankful for his wife Diane and his sons Aaron and Tyler for putting up with it.

“It’s a lot of time away from your family over the years,” he said. “A lot of missed birthdays and special events.”

Other than taking a vacation with his family, Helgevold isn’t sure what retirement will hold for him.

“I plan on doing something else when I retire. I’m just not sure yet what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’ve worked two jobs for the last 23 years, I’m not one to sit around.”