Rode a 1000 Gallon Pumper. You Try Saying that with a straight face!

Last night's fire practice was a bit more relaxed. Nothing extreme to report other then we were getting the christmas lights tightened on the roof of the fire hall and turned on. At one point, I was hanging over the edge of the roof (trust me it's not easy when there's nothing holding you in place while you reach for a fallen string of lights). I have longer arms then my partner did, he grabbed me, I grabbed the lights. Other then that little excitement, we pretty much hung out on the roof watching cop cars driving around and wondering what they were up to. Looking for someone? LOL

After we were done on the roof, 2 of us got a lesson in driving the 1000 gallon pumper truck and went for a ride. First time my partner got to drive the truck and I sat in the back with another member as he explained our roll in a call to a  structure fire or MVA from this place on the vehicle. It was really fascinating. Kinda funny how the more you learn while training to be the best fire fighter you can be the more you want to learn and the better you want to be.

I'm put out a challenge there for all my readers. No matter what you are doing in your life, career or home, figure out what you are passionate about and go for it 110%! Trust me, it's the most amazing thing to see what you can do. Never give up on yourself. Because when you give up on you, others will too. But if you are dedicated to what you want, you'll be surprised at the people that are drawn into your life to support  you, motivate you and lift you up.

We all deserve a moment in the spotlight; no matter where that light shines... up a chimney, down a sewer tank, underground covered in dust, out in space, on stage or taxiing people from place to place. As long as you are loving what you are doing, nothing is going to make you dim or dull, but you.

I'm taking a physical test on Saturday for something I dreamt about doing all my life. I don't know how I'm going to do, I've been told I'll do just fine but I am still cautious. There's nothing wrong with being cautious but I don't want to stop myself before I've even tried.

I'll keep you posted as I go through the rest of the days. But take it from me. If I hadn't of joined this amazing group of guys here at the OK Falls Fire Hall I would not have known what I was missing and perhaps regretted it for the rest of my life.

I salute ALL volunteer fire fighters and all those that are taking a leap and seeing what they can do to become one of us!

"Quick! I'm limp!" And other firefighter quirks

Hello and welcome! Our fire practice night was entertaining to say the least. We washed trucks! Yeah!!! LOL I know, I know, you're all going WHAT?!? Actually it was pretty funny and fun.

Let me tell you why we enjoyed it so much. One of our Captains, pointed at us randomly around the table, including me and said, "you five come with me" then pointed to another group of guys and said "you six will go with 'him' " directing to another Captian. We all looked at each other, shrugged and sure enough, five of us followed him out. We came together in front of one of the trucks and he disappeared! We looked around, "where did he go?" One of the guys wandered to the tool room, nope not there, then went back to the main room, nope not there...came back looking rather confused. We were told to follow but where? Not sure what we were suppose to do next we figured it was better to wait as a group then to spread out and hunt. 

Have no fear, Our Captian came back! ha ha ha He'd actually gone to the storage room and brought out brushes, special stainless steel cleaner, soap for the water hose then proceeded to tell us what we were in store for that night. One of the many Chris' said, "I hired a baby-sitter to come and clean trucks?" I thought he was going to leave, but as we got going on the cleaning he realized we were having so much fun, he stuck it out. 

At one point we were laughing so hard that no one could stand up properly. You'd thought we had drank the cleaner! One of the guys was using the hose to rinse the trucks down in stages and he yelled from the back of the truck, "Quick! I'm limp!" Oh man, that did it...we were killing ourselves laughing. We had no idea what he was talking about but we figured it must be something good. He then clarified it with, "My hose just dribbles!"

As you can imagine with a room full of guys, it got worse from there. Funny thing about being in the fire hall as the only female. None of the guys think twice about how they treat me, I'm either one of the guys or their my "father". Some will swear and look over at me immediately and appologize. I say, "Don't worry about it. I'm around drivers who know a lot more words then you say." But it's really nice that members respect me enough to think about their language.

At the end of laughing, getting soaked and cleaning trucks we went back to the hall for our meeting, and then got started on the Christmas party plans.

I bet you're wondering what the other six guys got to do while we played with water. They had to do CPR practice on a dummy :P I think I enjoyed my evening more then they did...ha ha ha

All in all, I didn't get home till after 11 and certainly didn't get to bed too early. LOL But what a fun way to break up the week.

Pictures save a 1000 words

Gooooood Morning! It's been a busy week for me this week, but all quiet so far on the OkFalls Fire Department end. Apparently they had a couple call outs yesterday while I was at work. Nothing they couldn't handle without me. Hee hee

Ok, so this morning I thought I would change things up a bit. Instead of talking about my boring practice night last night where I was the "man down". Literally! I ended up being the one brought back to safety and told to "sit this one out, we got it". My knees were a little worse then I'd thought. Ugh...anyway, we don't want to know about that do we? No, I didn't think so... Here is a blog of some photos instead:) I've got a couple more "action photos" to add when I get them later today, hopefully.

Enjoy! And have a great week!

Tim and me beside Engine 171

I'm in the water rescue craft for our fire fighters

Tim and I

Tim got to sit in the driver seat of Engine 171 wearing a Captain's helm.

At the back of our Pumper truck.

As you can see, our Engine 171 was custom built. It's kinda neat what they've done to it.

Me inside

At the back of our old pumper truck. Still used, just a lot smaller.

O_ooo buttons, levers, knobs oh my! The air tank on my back is one of our newer ones. Much lighter then what I've been training with.

Yes, it says Smart on my helmet! My parents might not think it's the smartest career move but it's one of my better choices in life <3

Our old pumper truck

Tim was having a blast.

Oh my Knees!! Can We Do it Again!?!

Last nights fire practise left me a little raw. No I'm serious! Literally my knees are raw! Ugh, and I have to wear my rough denim pants to work...ouch. I'm not putting bandages on the knees though. Forget that, they need to figure out how to heal on their own. If I put band-aids on every sore I got from work, practise, etc I'd be a walking mummy. Oh wait, I am a walking Mommy. LOL

Ok, let me start from the beginning. I got to the hall for our weekly meeting/practise and just before the meeting started I asked everyone permission to take a couple pictures of them gearing up, etc one of these days. I've been told that I needed to ask the Chiefs permission to write about the hall, practise, etc because of confidentiality and he needs to make sure that I'm behaving.

You know me... do I behave? hee hee ok, leave that alone. When I mentioned that it's coming from my prospective as a new recruit and the journey to being a fire fighter he didn't seem to have a problem with it. I'm sure he'll read my blogs now. "Hi Chief!" and I'll be getting a couple action pictures from the Oliver Chronicle to post that I've got permission to use from this past summer grass fire we were at.

So pictures are coming. I'll keep writing and we'll keep enjoying each others company. Deal?

Ok, back to the hall... After our brief meeting to find out what we were doing... Chris (the other newbie) and I got split up and I got put on Tag Team 1. Mike says we are the A-Team. Ha ha ha Complete bunker gear, tanks, masks, the whole nine yards had to be put on for this practise. There was three people to each team and we went out first. The fire hall was blacked out and filled with smoke (like they use at rock concerts). I was the one who had to test the door. Don't worry I did it with the back of my hand and checked the level of heat. We had to go out with a hose through the fire hall on our hands and knees. I got the axe and was second in the line. hee hee It's ok, we're all safe with me having sharp things.

Mike was third man on the hose and fed it to us while we went searching for victims. Marty was in lead and as we were going in the dark he would tell me where to go. Before we started out the door he told me I had to hold on to his right boot while going through so we wouldn't lose each other. So while we were crawling (thus the raw knees today) I kept hold of his right boot with my right hand while hanging on to the ax with my left hand. Do you know how hard it is to crawl with your hands full? ha ha ha 

We found a victim, but it wasn't the one we were looking for, it was a "man down". I helped drag him out of where he was and we had to call for more oxygen for him, he was running low and couldn't get out because of the "broken leg". All in all it was a great experience and I really had a blast.

Ok enough yammering. Have a great day everyone!

Call Outs Keep Me Learnin

Two call-outs today. One was for First Responder, the second one was for a structure fire. Both times I didn't go out on the calls as there were enough senior members who showed up. But I got to hang out in the radio room and see what goes on back at the hall while the trucks are out. It's kinda fun!

I got to do the paperwork too. Yes, I know how boring...paper work. LOL Trust me, it's exciting listening to the radio chatter, taking notes, filling in the times, incidents and everything else. Eavesdropping with permission. Ha Ha Ha

There is a routine in the firehall that I never really expected. I always thought it was grab your gear and get out to wherever you had to be. Helter-skelter scramble, but I've come to appreciate that our firehall has a great chain of command and everyone is important. No matter how little training I have I still feel like I'm able to contribute. I get handed a job, they ask if I can do it. I do the job, the best part is when I do come up against something I haven't done and ask questions, there is always 2 or 3 members who are willing to tell me what I need to know and don't mind sharing their knowledge! After three times of being told the same thing, in three different ways, I don't forget that part of whatever job it is I was asking about. hee hee

It's a blast hanging out with the chief and guys at the hall while the rest of the crew heads out to the job. I miss the excitement of being on the call, but it's still busy back at the department. From gathering the faxed reports, listening to Dispatch and filling in our paperwork, filing, cleaning the debris that comes through the open doors after the trucks leave to preparing the check-lists for when the trucks get back. Everything has it's time and place. Kinda nice to see so much organization in a Volunteer Department.

Well, gotta go grab a tea. Sorry Mom I'm stealing one of your chamomile teas tonight...lol need to slow down and get some sleep. Dang that adeline rush :P Night all!

Aluminium is Not Safe to Use With Fires

I'm not sure if you know this but an interesting fact that the woman at the structure fire learnt this evening. 

Aluminium is not something you want to put your ash in when cleaning out the wood stove, fireplace, etc. It actually traps the heat in from any sparks still live in the center of the pile and will radiate heat out 10x the actual temperature of the ash. If placed on a wood or duro-deck, it will heat up enough to start a fire. 

2 Things should be done when putting your ash outside: 

First Make sure its cold. Don't clean out the ash while its still warm. If you have to, then make sure that you put it into an ash bucket. Most hardware stores, fireplace shops have them and they really aren't expensive. When you take it outside, spread the ash on the ground away from the house and run water over it. Soak it good:)

Second thing to remember is never leave the hot ash bucket on your deck! If you are just going to be a minute, that's all it takes for a spark to fly or depending on the temperature of the ash, to radiate through to the dry surface.

The woman who had her deck catch on fire, didn't know that the heat through the aluminium would actually catch her wood pile on fire, below the deck slats. It melted her duro-deck, vinyl siding and shattered the first layer of her patio door glass. It happened in a 5 min time span. She thought it was safe on her deck while she lit her fire before taking it out to the compost. 

Peter was great! He explained to her about warm ash and what would have happened if she had of put it in the composter as well as how it had caught her deck on fire.

So this winter, please watch out for that ash... you never know for sure. Like a cigarette butt that you think is out, only 1 tiny spark is needed to burn a forest down or in the case of a house fire, warm ash.

A Pause in the Fire Practice

No fire practice for me last night. Worst migraine I've had in ages and just couldn't do it:( But still had work to do. Paper work seems to take longer with migraines, then normal. Gee I wonder why? LOL

Been up since 4:30 AM, the pager was going off. Smoke alarm going at one residential where no one lives...nothing to report there. All clear. But as Engine 172 (pumper truck) was off for that call they called Rescue 171 (a second vehicle) to come check out a scene they were passing up by the old Warehauser plant. A car was parked on the side of the road and someone was down behind it.

172 got there and found a woman with a broken leg. All good, ambulance got called and both trucks and crew came home to roost after 45 min.

Other then that, it was a really quiet evening. We did get a call out during fire practice last night tho'. Cut the practice short (they got set up for smoke out practice and then dispatch paged.) By the time the guys came back it was 9. So I really didn't miss anything. Next week I'll be back in full swing.

Well, it's Thursday and I've got some chores to do this morning. Head is still feeling the pressure. So I don't want to be on the computer long. Have a great day everyone!