Fireman Small

Well, I finally gave into a desire that's been rattling around in my head for the last few years. Last night, I went down to my local fire company and put in an application to be a volunteer firefighter.

About three years ago, our street was ablaze with fire apparatus lights at 4:30am as a house (two doors down from us), still under construction, had smoke coming from the vents. About two years ago, residents in the same unit (the other side of the duplex) had the firefighters out for another incident around the same time of day. Both times, it got me thinking about who responds, and what could happen if they didn't.

Now, unless anyone starts to worry, (hi, Mom!), there's loads of training that needs to take place before they ask me to "rush in while everyone else is rushing out". There's an Essentials course (that has about 80 hours of instruction) that (IIRC) I need to complete before I get to enter a building, and plenty of concern about doing what we do safely.

So I put in my application, after which they'll run a background check, call me in for an interview/orientation, and have a vote to determine if I can join. Then the training begins.

Tuesday nights are local training nights, and I got to watch last night's session. They reviewed some recent calls, and did some work with equipment that they had recently used. While they were doing some of the training, one of the assistant chiefs gave me an overview of one of the trucks and how the hoses are arranged. (I now know that I have yet to learn even how much I don't know; the title of this post refers not to my height, but to my level of understanding.)

I'll be trying to post here as I go along, with info on training and on the calls that I go out on. Our company goes on an average of 3-4 calls per week, and as I work an hour away from home, I'll be missing most of the daytime calls, but they assure me that I'll still be able to be useful.

Some tidbits from last night that I remember:

When arriving at an accident scene (around half of our calls are vehicle accidents), first thing is to "secure the area", meaning (at least) to be familiar with the surroundings of the vehicles involved. Then, identify any hazardous materials (fuel, oil, etc.) spilled. Then, secure the vehicle (which means making sure it's not going to roll over, but also that it's not going to roll away). THEN you get to work getting the victim out, which can involve cutting doors off, using spreaders, etc., and working with EMS folks, who may or may not have already arrived on the scene.

When arriving at a fire, as you're getting off the truck and preparing to approach the building, take a tool with you. Not only does this assist in having tools available when you need them, but you'll also want them to use to "sound" floors, i.e. make sure that the floor in front of you will support your weight when you put a foot there.

Responders at a scene have markings on their helmets. Most are black helmets. Red crosses are junior firefighters; they don't go into the buildings at all. White stripes are probationary (that'll be me, to start); we can pretend to be adults :), but don't go into buildings either. Yellow reflectors only are full-fledged firefighters. White, yellow and red helmets are chiefs, assistant chiefs, etc. (I forget what the red ones are.)

5-inch hose comes from the hydrant to the truck. 3-inch and 2.5-inch goes from the truck to the fire, with smaller hoses that can be split off (with a Y) to put water on the fire. There's a much smaller hose on the front of the truck that can be used for dumpster or mulch fires. The truck I was looking at has a 500-gallon tank that is full when the truck leaves the station; this means that small fires don't require a hydrant hookup, and also that water can start to be put on larger fires before the hydrant gets hooked up. Our other truck has an even larger tank (2500 gallons?).

One of the asst. chiefs asked me my age. When I told him "40", he replied "oh, good, you can be a driver, then". Needless to say, I've been salivating ever since, and was also pleased to learn that I won't need a commercial license either, due to a fire service exemption. But apparently, being a driver is maybe 5% driving, and 95% operating the pumps, etc., on the truck at the scene. (Those among you worried for my safety (hi again, Mom) will note that being a driver will probably keep me away from actual fires. We'll see.)

There are loads of other little things that I've already half-forgotten; we'll see how much I can think of to put here as I go along. I'm quite excited about doing this, and am quite looking forward to being able to help out. (Now, which end of this hose does the water come out of?)