Essentials, 2nd Night

Tonight we finished up the section on safety, and went over Chain of Command. Pretty straightforward stuff: "span of control" says that everybody reports to someone, and nobody has too many people reporting to them (5 is ideal, 3-7 is okay). We talked about how larger paid departments work, with a larger chain of command.

In between lectures, we got to see the host station testing their 5" lines. They put a draft into a pond, and laid what must've been 2000' of 5" up the hill, around the pavilion and back down to the engine. Then they drained it and put it all away. They had a very interesting looking appliance on the end of the line; several connections (w/valve handles) to allow them to split off smaller lines or continue on to another 5". I assume I'll learn more about those in the next class (Fireground Support), which our instructor intends to start up as soon as this one's over.

Toward the end of the class, we watched a history video that was fairly interesting, going from colonial times up to the MGM Grand fire in 1980. I remember hearing about that one on the news; I would have been 13 at the time. It struck me that nobody else at my table was even alive when that happened (all of my fellow station classmates are 16 or 17). (Yeah, I'm getting old.)

Next week's class will be on donning our gear and boarding the engine properly, and hazmat; the week following will be review and the test.