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Uintah Fire Marshal James Osgood shows children at Sketti O's Daycare a pickhead axe during a demonstration at Sketti O's Daycare in Uintah on Thursday, August 6, 2015.

BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner

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Uintah Fire Marshal James Osgood works on setting up the hose testing manifold before hose training in Uintah on Thursday, August 20, 2015.

BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner

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Retired firefighter and volunteer Fire Marshal James Osgood mows his lawn at his home in Ogden on August 19, 2015.

BRIANA SCROGGINS/Standard-Examiner

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”Any baby that I’ve delivered — and I’ve delivered four in my 30-year-career,” Osgood said. “Because we deal with so much negativity, death, dismemberment — you name it — when you get something that’s cherishable, like a child? It takes all that away. Momentarily, anyway.”

(Story continues below photos)

James Osgood wanted to be a firefighter from the moment, at age 9, he saw his first episode of “Emergency!,” the long-running television series from the 1970s about a couple of paramedics with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

“I wanted to be Johnny Gage, the guy who gets all the girls — ’cause Roy Desoto was married,” said Osgood, who is both a battalion chief with Uintah City Fire Department and the city’s fire marshal. “I wanted to be just like Johnny Gage: Put out the fires, get the girls in the hospitals, that kind of thing.”

Osgood had an odd way of manifesting his dream back then.

“The only way that I practiced my dream was to go set things on fire in the backyard,” he said. “Just so you know? Firemen, we’re all closet pyros. … OK, I can only speak for myself. I was a closet pyro.”

Born in Covina, Calif., Osgood spent more than 34 years of his life as a firefighter. He retired last March from the South Ogden Fire Department, where he had been fire captain.

The 52-year-old Ogden man has been volunteering with Uintah Fire for almost a year now. He spends a couple of days a week at the fire station.

“I like it that way, because then it’s my time,” he said of volunteering.

Above all else, Osgood says he loves helping others — especially those least able to help themselves. All of his favorite firefighter stories involve babies or small children.

His most memorable firefighter stories?

“Any baby that I’ve delivered — and I’ve delivered four in my 30-year-career,” Osgood said. “Because we deal with so much negativity, death, dismemberment — you name it — when you get something that’s cherishable, like a child? It takes all that away. Momentarily, anyway.”

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You can reach reporter Mark Saal at msaal@standard.net or at 801-625-4272. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman or like him on Facebook.

You can reach photographer Briana Scroggins at bscroggins@Standard.net or at 801-625-4283. Follow her on Twitter at @PhotOgden or like her on Facebook.