Luckily the personnel are okay...trucks & equipment can be insured and replaced, but good ppl (unfortunately) are hard to come by these days.
I don't believe that he's fire police. While I have never worked for a fire agency with a "sergeant" rank, I know they do exist in a few states. In many career departments, a driver/engineer (or driver/operator) is unofficially a sergeant; although he's not an officer, the D/E or D/O often has a wealth of knowledge, is a seasoned firefighter, is looked up to by the younger FF's as a private would look up to their SGT, and sometimes is qualified as a step-up LT (ie if there are a lot of officers sick or on Kelly day, certain D/E's that have taken the LT's exam can step up).