FD Training

Tuesday night is also our normal training night for the fire department so as soon as I got done with the running clinic I headed to Station 3, changed into some dry clothes and headed over to station 1 for drill. I had already missed 45 minutes and the guys were getting ready to set a fire inside a portable connex trailer we had for training. Basically we put some wood pallets and hay in the back end of the trailer and soak a little diesel on them and set them on fire. Even though this is in a small enclosed trailer, it still simulates a bedroom or other small room. They sent two engines down the road with full crews, lit the fire, and then had them respond in just like it was the real thing. I ended up missing most of this fun as the Chief asked me to get some FEMA training put in the computer for one of the guys. It was ok by me since I had already had my workout plus we were trying to get some of the rookies feeling some real fire. Well, they got to pull some hose and feel some heat. You can actually see the fire start, go up to the ceiling and then start ticking across the top, all the while the heat and smoke gets worse. What's funny is after the fire is out, the rookies always think its over but its not. You still have to load hose, change out air bottles, put equipment back on the truck and more. The thing about being a firefighter and especially a volunteer is that it is a total team effort. Everyone depends on someone else to make things happen. You don't always just get to put the wet stuff on the red stuff. Thats the easy and fun part. A lot of the time you have to do what you don't like. Loading 1500 feet of 5 inch hose at 3am after a 4 hour structure fire is not fun stuff!



This is the trailer we use. This was after the fire. They were just putting out what was left smoldering but you can see the white smoke which was mostly just steam.

By the way, it has been very quiet this week. Way too quiet.