« Cuteness... | Main | Well, There's Always Next Year... »
April 30, 2006
Where Was Jon On Saturday April 29th, 2006?
If you think you've seen the title of this entry before, let me confirm the feelings of deja vu you are having right now...You've seen it before. The dates may have changed, but the title is still pretty much the same. Last year, I attended a live burn of a structure we acquired in our district. This year, I did the very same thing, but with one noted exception: I made the pictures much bigger, so you can actually see stuff. (Thanks Keir!) This year, someone donated a house they were no longer interested in. It looked like this:
Okay, so you'll have to imagine what it looked like without firefighters climbing on it. Sorry. Firefighters Jim and Dale are preparing to cut a vent hole in the roof, to allow hot gases and smoke to escape, as we train inside the building...
Here's Mike, hard at work...
We're ready to go! Almost...
Before we begin training, we have to talk about what our objectives are, how we are going to accomplish them, remind ourselves to keep safe, and have fun!
These are our instructors, who start the small fires for us inside the building, then get out of the way while we do the hard work!
This is Chief Don. He is in overall command of the training exercise.
Before we begin the training exercise(s), there are a few things we need.
First and foremost, we need water. That came from Engines 251 and 122, staffed by Marc and Jon respectively...
They provided water for us using a water shuttle, since there are no close hydrants around. 122 was the source engine, while 251 was the pumping engine.
Our fire department also has an air truck, Truck 125, which makes air for our air bottles. 125 was driven and operated by Firefighter Bob. His job is to make sure that all of our air bottles are filled, so we can continue to train without having to breathe in all that nasty smoke. Thanks Bob!
Then we need to do a walk through of the structure, so we all have a general knowledge of where the exits are (in case something goes awry) where windows are (for the very same purpose) and where we need to be to fight the fire...
Here, one of our instructors, Jason, gives us a layout of the room, and explains how the burns are going to go...
Then, we need fuel...
Diesel fuel. The instructors soak down hay bales and wood pallets with it, then light them on fire, so we can train under live fire conditons. Speaking of which, let the training begin!
Here are a couple of teams preparing to go "put wet stuff on the red stuff", as we like to say!
If you are a keen observer of detail, you would have noticed that I am not in any of these pictures. Several reasons for this exist:
1. I hate having my picture taken.
2. I hate having my picture taken.
3. I hate having my picture taken.
4. I was very, very busy, and was unable to take a whole lot of pictures.
5. 1. I hate having my picture taken.
Besides, seriously, would you rather have me put out the fire, or take pictures of myself? I thought so.
Alright, fine. Here's one of me from our last live burn...
During these training exercises, we encourage neighborhood residents, family members of firefighters and other folks to drop by and see what we do. Here is Grace, the daughter of firefighter John who stopped by to play with Daddy's mask and helmet as he took a breather...
Sadly, Jonah and Megan could not make this one, as Jonah was asleep. So here is a picture of the boy, just so you can see a picture of the boy. Hopefully he can watch us work at the next one...
Hey! How did that picture get in there? Oh, did I mention that the New Jersey Devils have already taken care of the New York Rangers in a four game sweep in the Stanley Cup Quarterfinals? WHO'S NEXT?
Ahem...Back to the live burn...
And after lunch, we decided to have one more "evolution" as it's called, and then, burn the house to the ground!
The lunch was provided by the WOLF Club, or Widows Of Living Firefighters. It was fantastic, as always!
So after training one last time, we begin to prepare for the burndown, or when we let the house burn to the ground. When firefighters get on scene at a house fire, they do everything within their power to save that house. There is a certain feeling of guilt when we can't accomplish that goal, but we do our best, nonetheless. However, during the burndown, that guilt feeling isn't there, because we actually set out to burn the house down. It sort of like a reward for a job well done. The rest of the pictures are of the burndown. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did watching it burn down!
And here are two more, before, and after...
Posted by Jon at April 30, 2006 12:06 PM
Comments
Jon,
Excellent blog. You might want to consider writing comedy, I mean, really, you've the gift for humor.
Great seeing y'all at the Bagel Store 6/4/06
Marc
Posted by: marc cutler at June 4, 2006 11:01 PM