Plymouth Firefighter Douglas Houston. GARY HIGGINS photo/The Patriot Ledger

TO THE RESCUE

Douglas Houston

Firefighter, Plymouth

I’m easy-going, happy-go-lucky. I like to have fun and try to get the most out of life.”
“I’m a person who loves coming to work every day. I play practical jokes on guys at the station, but when a call comes in, I’m all business. You have to be. I like helping people. It’s a good feeling.”
“I was a good athlete in school, but not the best student.”
“I like to think I’m a good father. I get right down on the floor and interact with my daughters, even when they’re playing Barbie dolls and stuff.”

THE SKINNY
RANK: Firefighter
AGE: 35
APPOINTED: As a firefighter in the military, 1991
HIRED IN PLYMOUTH: 1998
BIO: Douglas Houston grew up in West Plymouth. He attended Sacred Heart School until the ninth grade and then Coyle and Cassidy High School in Taunton. He joined the Air Force and attended the Shanute Fire Academy in Illinois. He worked as a firefighter at George Air Force Base in California until it closed, prompting his return to Plymouth, where he became a corrections officer at the Plymouth County jail. He became a Plymouth firefighter in 1998.
What did you want to be when you were a kid? “Until I was about 12, a basketball player. But my mother was talking one day about her grandfather being a Boston firefighter. From then on, I wanted to be a firefighter.”
What would you have been if not a firefighter? “Probably something in the medical field, a nurse or technician. That was my fallback plan. I really like helping people. That’s what was lacking at the end of the day when I worked in the jail.
Best advice you ever got: Keep your mouth shut and watch the senior firefighters.
Person who gave it to you: Retired Plymouth Firefighter Tom Vacchino, while helping Houston learn the ropes as a rookie firefighter.
What do you do in your time off? “I fish, hang around with my family and play with my kids.”

September 28, 2007