When veteran firefighter Frank Dahlquist recalls the moment that defined his life, it’s not in a firehouse or on a training ground. It’s on the shoulder of I‑5 in Washington State, where dust still hung in the air after a devastating crash. He remembers his wife, seven months pregnant, sitting silently in their car as he sprinted toward twisted metal. “At milepost 222, it suddenly came over me,” he says. “God put it on my heart—‘Be Ready. At milepost 221, it just happened.”
That instinct would become his creed, shaping a career built on service, preparation, and faith.
From CHiPs to Firefighting
After high school, Frank knew he wanted to be a responder of some kind. “It was almost instinctual—part of my family’s DNA,” he says. “All my uncles were in the military, and my father was an Army medic just as Vietnam was getting started.” He originally leaned toward law enforcement, inspired as a child by the TV show ChiPs, watching Ponch and John chase bad guys. Now, as a career started to take shape, mentors who worked on notorious cases like the Green River Killer and Ted Bundy were intriguing.
But as the saying goes, “What does every police officer want to be? A firefighter.” Frank joined his hometown department as a volunteer, intending to add experience to his resume. Instead, he found his purpose. “Once I got in, I was hooked,” he recalls. “I put myself through the state fire academy while working weekends as a contractor and raising a new family.”
Then, one summer day, everything changed.
The Call That Changed Everything
Driving southbound on I‑5 in Skagit County, Frank was thinking about the recent string of serious cross-over accidents when the words “Be Ready” crossed his mind. On autopilot, just driving down the freeway, he didn’t know exactly where he was. To call an accident in, he would have to know the mile marker. Just then, milepost 222 flew past. “I started to go through the whole scenario. From arrival, triaging victims, having bystanders assist, calling 911 and asking for resources, “ Frank recalled. “I walked through it from beginning to end.” A minute later, brake lights flared ahead. “A vehicle crossed the median, head‑on with another—multiple victims,” he says. “It was chaotic at first. A roof torn off, a family of five severely injured.” A second vehicle down the road is out of view.
With only his fire department-issued medical kit and a post 9/11 swag T‑shirt that read FDNY, Frank took control. “All eyes looked toward me,” he remembers. “I started assessing patients, giving orders, directing bystanders and calling 911 with my exact location.” When emergency units arrived, Frank briefed the first officer, and after extricating multiple patients, he stepped back as first responders overwhelmed the scene. A medic was about to call the time of death on a child in the backseat that earlier Frank assessed as alive. The child’s hand came out from under the blanket,” he says. Frank recognized what was going on and a mistake was being made. “It was just a mix‑up as one child was deceased and obscured by the wreckage. We pulled the child from the middle seat out—alive,” he stated. Sadly, there were two fatalities caused by the accident.
He returned to his car, shaken but composed. “My wife looked at me and said, ‘It looked like you knew what you were doing.’ It was the first time I’d ever done anything like that,” Frank says. “If it wasn’t for God putting it on my heart just 60 seconds earlier, I would’ve never been prepared.”
That was the moment he knew: firefighting wasn’t just a job. It was a calling. Later, he was baptized in his firefighter uniform.
A Career Forged in Training
After being hired by a large department serving a mix of commercial, urban, and rural areas, Frank was thrust into a high-call-volume fire station with a large response area and a history of crazy calls. “My probationary year was intense,” he says. “Multiple structure fires, week‑long windstorms, fourteen fatalities in my first nine months. It ended with another quadruple fatality—a wrong‑way drunk driver on I‑90, middle of the night on a holiday weekend. A single child was the sole survivor.”
For Frank, training became the cornerstone of his career. Thousands of hours of training, dozens of certifications, and accreditations from nationally recognized fire authorities. “Firefighter education and training are vital,” he says. “I took my responsibility and my oath seriously. I trained, I studied, I treated every day as my first.” He challenged his peers with simple questions: What does it mean to be a firefighter? What does the person calling 911 expect from you?
That mindset followed him throughout his career—and into the classroom.
The “Top Gun” of Fire Schools
Frank later joined the Washington State Patrol Fire Training Academy, where he trained new firefighters at what he calls the “Top Gun” of fire schools. “Twelve weeks of full immersion at an isolated academy in the mountains outside Seattle,” he says. “Balancing classroom with hands-on, live fire training multiple times a week, real‑world scenarios under high heat and zero visibility.”
Returning to the academy as an instructor was, in his words, “a logical step.” He wanted to give back what he’d learned and pass on the culture of readiness. “After achieving journeyman firefighter/driver operator status, I wanted to share the love for the job,” he says. “I sought out peers who had decades of living the science of firefighting.”
The Meaning of “Be Ready”
Frank’s philosophy is simple but hard‑earned. “Treat every day as if it were your first,” he says. “Be the perpetual probie. No matter if you’re an informal leader or the promoted leader, be a servant leader.”
He often worked late into the night, long after others had turned in. After serving the community’s and his crew’s needs first, “My time always came late at night—finishing reports, working on projects, planning for the next shifts. Plus, there are going to be calls after midnight, so what’s the point?”
To him, firefighting is both profession and devotion. “Once a firefighter, always a firefighter,” says Frank Dahlquist. “It’s in the blood—and it’s addicting. Living by the motto ‘Be Ready’ isn’t just about being prepared for the next call. It’s about being ready to sacrifice for those we serve, on the worst day of their life.”
