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By ANNA GRACE MOORE | Magazine Editor

Screeching in pulses, the fire tone wakes Alabaster firefighter-paramedic Devarye Mack out of a dead sleep. Half a second passes, and his feet hit the floor.

A race to the locker, Mack quickly grabs his helmet and oxygen tank before bolting to the fire engine, grasping the bar to hoist himself nearly five feet in the air onto the first step, climbing into the truck. The wail of the siren echoes like a fearmongering spirit through the station.

This was it. No turning back now.

Riding in the witching hours, Mack pulls on his boots and shimmies his gear up his back and over his shoulders before briskly zipping up his veil of protection. Barreling down a narrow county road, the engine pierces through the fog clouding the roads as its wails crescendo, ricocheting off the hills in the distance.

Suddenly, Mack spots an orange flicker in the distance. As he rides closer, that flicker licks up the roof in a fiery haze with black smog billowing from the rafters.

Mack jumps off the truck and snatches the hose, leading his ranks up the stairs to the apartment door. Clutching his heart, but only for a moment, he whispers a prayer for his men.

“Let’s roll,” he shouts.

Setting the Standard

An Alabaster native, Mack was just 18 years old and a senior at Thompson High School when he first considered a career in firefighting.

“As a kid, my parents were big sticklers about doing well in whatever you want to do in life,” Mack said. “That starts in the classroom. They would do things like pay me for every ‘A’ but never pay me for a ‘B.’ From a young age, that’s pretty easy to get ‘A’s’ in addition and subtraction, but as I got older, they were like, ‘Alright, we’re not going to pay you anymore. This is now a standard.’ That standard stuck with me throughout high school.”

The older Mack became, the higher he set his standard. No matter if he was playing point guard or later on, fighting fire, Mack viewed challenges as opportunities to grow.

During his senior year, he learned about Alabaster Mayor Scott Brakefield’s city-wide, paid internship program. The first of its kind, this program provided Thompson High School seniors the opportunity to intern with city departments and assess if careers in trades were the right fit for them.

Although Mack had already received several college scholarship offers, he decided to apply for the internship “just to fill his time” as his basketball season was ending. The Alabaster Fire Department was the first out of the city to hire interns.

All applicants had to complete a rigorous firefighter training course to even be considered for the internship. Mack, joking he has always been athletic, was surprisingly humbled at the mere physicality required during training.

He was selected as one of only two interns out of 20 applicants. He was hired in March 2022, and on his very first day, he witnessed a live house fire training.

“I was like, ‘Oh God! They set the building on fire!’” Mack said, chuckling.

Sure enough, that one house fire training piqued his interest in what would become his dream career.

“He is the guy that has set the standard,” Alabaster Fire Chief Tim Love said. “What he has shown us is that we need to show kids that are in school that municipal jobs, and for us specifically, the fire service, are not just jobs. They’re careers. He got hired at a young age. He can retire with full benefits at a very young age. He has all the tools he needs to move up. He’s the poster child for what an intern program should do.”

Under his Wing

Mack was assigned to Alabaster Fire Lieutenant Chad Trautwein during his internship. Trautwein, who has worked in the fire service for 20 years, trained with Mack after school let out on every B-shift, teaching him the ropes.

Trautwein first coached him on navigating a scene in his turnout gear and self-contained breathing apparatus, which is a tank funneling clean oxygen into a firefighter’s mask. The gear alone is 80 pounds, and Mack struggled learning to run and climb in his gear while being weighed down.

Despite the burden, he set a new standard for himself, “Take one more step in my gear today than I did yesterday.”

“He was always positive and eager to learn,” Trautwein said. “He never came in with a bad attitude. He always had a smile on his face and was always excited to be here.”

Alabaster Fire Captain Zach Cruce agreed, saying Mack has become the role model for future interns to follow.

“Everyone who meets Mack loves him,” Cruce said. “He has a great attitude, strong work ethic and is a great fit for our organization. He is working hard to learn his craft and is not afraid to get out of his comfort zone and learn new things.”

From March-June 2022, Mack rotated around all of the fire stations in Alabaster, learning from different professionals and observing them on calls. He practiced taking ladders off of firetrucks, throwing ladders up to assist victims and even hooking up supply lines from the fire truck to the fire hydrant.

He also learned several life lessons during his internship such as how to change a tire. Trautwein said the beauty of interning for a trade career is the practical knowledge one gains first-hand.

Then came the real challenge: Saving people.

“I remember riding with one of the battalion chiefs, and we got dispatched to an overdose,” Mack said. “I remember Chief checked his pulse and said, ‘You need to start CPR.’ I remember being so amped up to be able to help. All I could think of was ‘Revert to my training.’ Funny enough, me thinking like that then is how I think now running calls.”

Mack started compressions on the patient, praying silently that he would live. Hearing the crunch of the patient’s sternum made it real–the patient’s vitality was slipping through Mack’s fingers.

He pressed harder, steadily, almost to the beat of his own accelerated heartbeat, counting, “one, two, three, four,” desperately trying to revive the patient. An eternity of a minute or two passed, and the engine crew arrived to relieve Mack.

By the grace of God and the assistance of several talented firefighters, the patient lived.

“For any patient I serve, I want to do right for their sake,” Mack said. “Every patient deserves proper care, no matter who they are. They have a right to get the best out of us as a department.”

That was the first time Mack ever performed CPR on a live victim. He’ll never forget feeling the warmth of a body retreat into the depths of the soul.

He also won’t forget a lesson he learned that day: Each person will face his own inferno–his own trials–in life. Yet, what makes one emerge victorious is not his success, but his courage to face his fears, especially for the sake of someone else.

Navigating his Journey

Mack graduated from Thompson High School in May 2022, and by that August, he was hired as a full-time firefighter recruit with Station 3. The following month, he attended the Alabama Fire College and later completed recruit school, earning his Fire Fighter I/II, Hazmat Awareness and Operations and Rescue Intervention certifications.

He earned his EMT License from Herzing University in April 2023—the same month he began training to receive his Paramedic License, which he received in May 2024. In March 2024, Mack also earned his Apparatus Operator “AO” Pumper certification, and that November, he received his AO Aerial Pumper.

Thanks to his parents, Mack took enough dual enrollment classes in high school that he only has four semesters worth of classes to take towards earning his bachelor’s degree. In September 2024, he enrolled at Columbia Southern University and is on track to graduate in fall 2026 with his Bachelor of Emergency Medical Services and Administration.

“There’s nothing wrong with going right to the workforce out of high school and going ahead and getting a career because for so long, I think people put it in kids’ heads that if you don’t go to college, you’re not really going to amount to much, which is not the case at all whatsoever,” Trautwein said. “I didn’t go to college. I got hired here in Alabaster when I was 18, and it has been one of the best choices I’ve ever made in my life.”

Numerous firefighters in Alabaster have received higher education and can retire early in life with full benefits, but hardly any of them took the conventional route out of high school. The reason their success may look different but is no less impressive is because there’s no cookie-cutter route to navigate one’s journey in life.

Accomplishment comes not from textbooks, but from life experience. The best young people make of it is often how they measure their own success—setting standards for themselves, achieving their goals and working toward their next, big dream in life.

Mack wants to become a battalion chief one day. Now, the question is not “how,” but “when” he’ll achieve that standard before setting a new one.