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Nicki Schauman is a fire captain in the Antarctic Fire Department, which operates fire and emergency support services at three US-run facilities in Antarctica. A former fire lieutenant at McMurdo Station, located near the northern tip of Antarctica, Schauman currently manages a team of seven firefighters and two dispatchers who are all trained to respond to aircraft emergencies at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, which is more than 1,300 kilometers south of McMurdo.

Firefighters don’t actually fight a lot of fires in Antarctica. There’s so much ice and snow that fires are rare—I’ve worked in Antarctica for two seasons and haven’t seen one yet—but there’s risk. The climate is very dry and windy. A fire could quickly spread between buildings. And if something burns, you can’t replace it easily. Cargo only arrives by ship or military plane a few times per year.

Even so, we stay busy. Most Antarctic firefighters are also trained as EMTs or paramedics and all are certified ARFFs—aircraft rescue firefighters—but here at the South Pole Station, at the bottom of the world, aircraft firefighting is our main job. We come for the summer—October through February—when the station has about 150 people, mostly researchers and support staff. Our job is to be ready when a plane takes off or lands in case of emergencies.

Fires on board are rare, but every day we go to the runway prepared. We load two covered sleds with about 7,500 liters of foam and a dry chemical agent called Purple-K and pull them with a tractor to the runway. Heaters and generators keep the supplies warm—we often work in -50 or -60 °C temperatures, but the foam can’t be colder than -40 °C or it might not work.

We’re trained to evacuate passengers and extinguish fires in the plane, but mostly we clear runways and stand by for departures and landings, which can sometimes happen unexpectedly. When an aircraft takes off, the temperature changes can crack the windows. There can be whiteouts or maintenance issues that cause pilots to boomerang back to the runway. We’re also there to help with things like injuries or hazardous material leaks.

Planes come and go from the South Pole every day during the high season, so we sometimes spend 12 hours or more at the runway, typically in a van to stay warm or on the sled, which is covered but not heated. Our clothing is the same gear that your neighborhood firefighter wears. Fire can melt certain fabrics to your skin, so we can’t add extra layers.

The Antarctic stations each run a little differently, and so do the fire teams. McMurdo has a much bigger community, between 1,000 and 1,500 people, and the fire team has about 40 people. They respond to all kinds of emergency calls year round, most of which are medical related, and they do aircraft firefighting.

In the South Pole, when not tending to air traffic, we train the volunteer fire brigade members who run the station when we’re not here. We also help in the community, which is actually really cool. The South Pole Station has a gym, a cafeteria-style kitchen, communal dining areas, and TV lounges and is the only US station that has a growth chamber that supplies fresh produce for the kitchen. We do extinguisher and fire inspections daily and help with moving snow, kitchen duty—whatever’s needed.

I try to tell the young guys here, this is the best job. Everybody works together and helps each other get through. Every Tuesday, there’s a free science lecture, so I’ve learned a lot, too. I’ve already put in a contract to come back next year.