Twin Falls, Idaho (KMVT-TV) Could you get dressed for work in a minute or less? Firefighters have to do it all the time. And once they're on the job, they have to make sure their body core temperatures don't get too high.

Captain Aaron Hudson of the Twin Falls Fire Department says, "What we do is as soon as we have an opportunity, after we've made an initial knockdown of the fire, we'll trade out crews. We'll have a second crew go inside, the initial crew come back out, and take some of those layers off, allow some air to get to our bodies, and allow our bodies to cool off the best that we can."

Sometimes firefighters put on a "cool vest" after they've been battling blazes. It's filled with frozen gel like the refreezable ice packs that you put in picnic coolers to keep your drinks cold. Hudson says the cool vest helps get their body temperatures back down to normal levels.

Hudson says, "One of the things we encourage our members to do is make sure we drink plenty of fluids, water specifically, and that's even prior to coming to work. We tell them 20 to 32 ounces of water before they come to work, and then continue that from the time that they get here until they go to bed at night, or until the shift ends."

Hudson says for the rest of us who are aren't firefighters, we need to not drink alcohol or drinks with caffeine in them when it's hot. He says water is the best way to help keep your body temperature down, so you can deal with the heat effectively.

July 13, 2012.