Best Firefighter: ?Bob Venera

Published 4:53 pm Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Bob Venera, longtime firefighter in North Bend and recently transferred to Issaquah, was top of the list in the votes for firefighters in the 2015 Best of the Valley reader survey.

It’s not a new spot for the 20-year veteran of North Bend’s Station 87. He was a winner in 2011, as well.

Venera grew up in the Valley, graduating from Mount Si High School in 1981, and watching the community change dramatically over the years.

“A few big (changes) stand out,” Venera wrote in an e-mail message to the Record. “Going from mainly volunteer — it was just my dad (Jerry Venera, a firefighter for 10 years and eventually the North Bend Fire Chief) and Tom Needham as the paid crew — to career personnel,  starting of the paramedic unit to today having two paramedics. North Bend and the Upper Snoqualmie Valley are so lucky to have a medic unit stationed there. And (building) the new fire station.”

He’s also seen a few big incidents, such as the explosion in North Bend last spring, and the Nov. 24, 2011, apartment fire that injured two people and displaced dozens of residents for the holidays. He received one of Eastside Fire & Rescue’s first-ever awards, a life-saving award, for his actions at that fire.

“I just happened to be driving past and saw Snoqualmie Fire (the North Bend engine was on a separate CPR call on I-90) just arriving, so I stopped to help them. Once the fire was knocked down, I was getting ready to leave, when a KCP officer ran around the corner and said a women was having a heart attack. So we went back there and started CPR and we revived her.”

He had a few role models in his career, including Scott Foster and Ken Alm, both firefighters who retired earlier this year. “Combined they had somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 years in the fire service,” Venera wrote.

“Scott was a longtime volunteer with Snoqualmie, a fire dispatcher and then a paid firefighter. Ken was originally hired by my dad with the North Bend Fire Department. He finished his career as a lieutenant with Eastside Fire and served a long time at the station on the North end of the Pine Lake Plateau.”

Asked what one thing he would like everyone to know about fire prevention and safety, he had a ready answer.

“Hands down smoke detectors save lives. That’s an easy one.”