Fire!

"Ok, we got Crew Stone, standby on side 1"

This is it, we're finally going to get to play with real fire. My crew has just parked their vehicles, and we have all donned our gear before checking in with the "Incident Commander". Picking our boy Chris Stone as crew leader, it's time to go to work. I glance around as we wait a moment for Stone to dish out assignments. Here we are, the big burn building looming over us, charred in places from the hundreds of times firefighters have trained in this building. At my back, dwarfed by the structure, is the reserve engine 1308, ready to send huge amounts of water with us towards the blaze. It's nothing short of exciting.

Stone: "Berkel, you get the nozzle! Stoops, tools! Vizitei, vent fan!"

Assignments are handed out, and we all start moving at once to the compartment on the firetruck where the air packs were stored. Flipping open the door, we all try our hardest to show that we'd actually learned something last saturday when we were practicing this. I pull the release on my pack, and jerk it off it's mount as quickly as I dare. Glancing at the air gauge, I see about 4200 PSI, well above the required minimum of 4000. To my left I hear one of my crewmates shout over the rumbling of the fire truck: "I have a pack at 33,000! It's too low!". Our instructor calls back: "Good job! Always check! Now go ahead and use it, it will be OK for what we're doing!". Meanwhile I've shoved the pack over my head and have pulled all the straps tight around my body. Time to get the fan.

As I'm dragging the ventilation fan away from the engine, I glance around at all my crewmates (my peripherals being cut off by the mask I'm wearing). There's Berkel, tall and lanky, tossing out segments of the hose, dragging it over to the door. Stone is already disappearing around the side of the building, doing his size up from all sides. Stoops, having pulled the married set of irons from the truck, is helping get the hose ready for entry.

Instructor: "Let's go, guys! There's a fire in there, we don't have time to play around! Get your stuff done and get ready to get in there!"

Parking the fan next to the door, I turn it away as trained, and give the startup cord one sharp pull.

Fan: "Sputter...sputter..cough..."

Awesome. I give it a few more yanks just to be sure the first one was hard enough, but it ain't starting. I begin to fiddle with every switch on the damn thing, trying to find the choke, pulling the cord again every few seconds to check my progress. Finally, after yanking an unmarked bar away from the fan body, I'm rewarded with a roar as the fan starts blowing away. Pleased, I throttle it up, and step back while Berkel clears any air out of the hose by running water through it. Stone has just made it back around to our side of the building and has started radioing back to command, but I can't hear anything he's saying over the noise of the vent fan. Finally he comes to stand next to the other three of us and shouts: "Two exposures and a gas line on side 3! Smoke showing from the second story!"

The instructor steps forward to prepare us to get inside.

Instructor: "Alright, we're standing by, that means everybody needs to be in position with their regulator in one hand, and their tool in the other" (the regulator is the mouth-piece for your airpack, we don't want to start breathing air off of the pack until we need it) "Everybody should be along the hose. Nozzle-man, nozzle in one hand, regulator in the other. Next in line..." (pointing at me) "hose in one hand, regulator in the other." (I snap the regulator off my belt and clutch it in my left hand) "Tool-man, married set in one hand. Crew leader, radio in one hand. Now we wait for orders. When command tells us to move, we don't waste any time. You will snap those regulators into place and we will get to work!"

I hear the radio crackle in Stone's hand, and my heart starts beating a little faster.

Radio: "...[crackle]....Crew Stone, this is Command. make entry side one....[crackle]..."
Instructor: "Let's GO, boys!"

We all push our regulators against our face and snap them to the left, blinking as the first puff of air hits us in the face. Then it's time to work. Berkel heads in through the door to the stairwell and starts dragging the hose up to the second story. Here there's a landing with a closed door to the room where the fire is being stoked. The four of us, at the instructors command, haul up enough hose into the landing to supply us into the room, and then crouch by the door.

Instructor: "Ass down, gentlemen! When in a fire you stay low to the ground! Now, let's get in there!"

The door opens and we start crawling into the main room, dragging hose with us. There in the corner is a pile of wood and excelsior, with another firefighter standing near it bearing a road flare. As we move along the wall, we can feel the hands of our instructor pushing us back down any time we try to stand up to move more easily.

Instructor: "Stay down and along the wall!"

At a signal from the training chief who's in the building with us, the road flare touches the pile of fuel, and the room begins to glow.

Fire!

The chief starts into his lecture on pyrolysis and the behaviour of the fire, but our attention is mostly focused on the sheer power radiating from in front of us. Crouched behind Berkel (our nozzle-man), I can feel heat rolling over his shoulders and onto my neck. Our heartbeats start picking up even further and I can hear the increased air consumption as everyone's regulators start puffing more and more often. We're excited. Finally the chief gives the order to fire a burst of water to cool the fire a bit.

POW!!

The hose kicks as Berkel opens up towards the top of the flaming column, and it stops just as quickly as he shuts it off. Suddenly we feel the temperature go up as all the steam from the water he just fired settles around us. Who would have thought that we would be making the room even hotter by trying to put water on the flame? The chief keeps talking for a minute, and then it's my turn to cycle up and feel the flame from the nozzle position. I crawl forward on the hose and Berkel retreats to the rear of the crew. Picking up the nozzle in my hands, I push myself up against the wall to steady myself, and take in the bright glow of the flaming mass in front of me. Seeing it from behind another person is one thing, but now I'm bearing the full brunt of the radiant heat hitting me in the chest. I can see the flames licking across the ceiling, embers flying from the blaze in all directions, the blinding brightness piercing through my mask to light up my eyes. No one can see me behind my mask, so I permit myself a huge grin while my breathing speeds up even more. The order comes in to fire, so I grab the bale on the nozzle and pull it open, letting the force of the kickback wash through my coiled limbs like shock absorbers on an SUV. I crank it closed again and survey my work as the flames have shrunk down to a more manageable size again.

After everybody's had a turn, we back off, and pull out of the building, where our instructor tells us to take off our masks and go wait for him off to the side. Once he's not looking anymore, we start high-fiving like junior high students. When he comes back, though, the four of us put on our serious faces again and nod silently as he gives us a debriefing on what we just went through. The instructor talks through the fire development, gives some encouragement about improving some points in our tactics, and again admonishes us about moving with a purpose. Then he goes silent for a second as he surveys our faces, and the corners of his mouth twist upwards.

Instructor: "Ok, guys, NOW we can smile. That was pretty cool huh?"

Lame

We just got our shiny new pagers, and a big lecture to go with them.

"This is for the purpose of learning," The instructor says. "You can now hear calls as they come out, and you can practice figuring out where to go. Now, this part is important: You may not go. You are NOT clear to run calls. If any one of you, as a recruit, actually shows up on the fire-ground, then you will quickly end up having a short conversation in the Chief's office that will end with you handing over your turnouts and you being off the district. I promise. We may cut you a little slack if there's a call right next door to you and you look out the window, but don't you DARE come outside. Are there any questions about this?"

There weren't, and I happily have been listening to my pager for the last two days, enjoying the stream of knowledge flowing to my belt. Until just now. Here I am sitting in my house with my wife at 1504 [My Street], and what do I hear?

"Bebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebeeep: Engine 1401, Truck 806, Delta Response 1414 [My Street]. Be advised, you are responding to a 10-year old male, experiencing seizures, concious, but not responding. Labored breathing."

Come on. Come ON! I'm right HERE! and I can't even leave my house. Lame. LAME!

But that's the rules, and I can't break 'em. As a small condolance, my brother and a friend (a groomsman from my wedding, actually) stopped by after the call to talk with me (basically to make fun of me for not being able to go). I opened the door and smiled, about to greet them:

"Bebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebebeeep: Engine 801, Engine 1501, Residential Structure Fire"

LAME!!!!!!!!!!!!

The real deal

"Let's go, let's go! Someone needs your help, move with a purpose!"

This will probably be a mantra circling my ears for the next few months. Today was our first full-day practical training, and while it was a lot of fun getting to play with the big toys, it was hard work. I can already tell I'm gonna be a little sore tomorrow.

All our previous classes have been held at the headquarters of the Fire District, but today in order to build crew solidarity, each one of the 4 crews in the recruit class got sent to a different county station to work with the big trucks and learn how to handle air tanks and hoses. Arriving at 8:00 AM, we all dumped our gear in the bay and ambled inside to great the residents of Station 8. First thing in the door, the instructor asks "What have we started every class with?". The recruits (myself included), remind him that all of our classes at headquarters have started with a gear drill.

"Go!"

Back out the door, into the bay where the trucks are, the bags fly open, and we start throwing our clothes on. Boots out, right foot, left foot, pants up, right suspender, left suspender ("MOVE guys, you gotta MOVE, you've got somebody who needs help NOW!"), close pants, don hood, coat out, right arm, left arm ("Come on, you should already be out the door, let's GO guys, move with a purpose!"), zip coat, close storm flap, close collar, helmet on, gloves out, right glove, left glove, DONE!

All that practice is finally paying off, cause I managed to don all that stuff first out of my class nearly every time. Feeling pretty proud of myself, I allowed a small smile to emerge on my face as I waited for one of the other members of my crew to finish getting his gear on.

The instructor keeps pushing the last guy on our crew until he's dressed and then turns to address all of us:

"Who is slow, here?"

We all point mutely to our buddy (no offense to him) who got dressed at least 15 seconds behind the rest of us. The instructor shakes his head.

"Do you get the truck out the door without your last crew member?"

We reply with the obvious "No".

"Than HE is not slow; CREW THREE is slow. You've gotta encourage your buddy here because you are all as slow as he is at getting to where you need to be."

My smile fades a bit.

"Get that gear off, and let's do it again".

We did a lot of work today with hoses and breathing tanks, but that mentality is I think what will stick with me the most. This isn't really a "competitive" job. I get no points even if I do everything twice as fast and twice as well as anyone else. If we work together and get our shit done, WE win. If my crew doesn't accomplish their objective, WE lose. Regardless of my individual contribution.

It can be frustrating, in a way. I can't practice FOR the other members of my team, I can only ask that they do so for the sake of all of us. But in another way, it's the pinnacle of the human chain. We aren't trying to jostle for position in the organization. We don't climb for the heights by stepping on the heads of our peers. Instead, we're trying to boost each other up, to make ourselves as a whole crew the best we can be.

And if we get to save lives in the process, so much the better.

My new best friend

Thursday Recruit Class:

"The gear we're about to issue to you is very expensive. It costs over $2000 to outfit every firefighter with their basic Personal Protective Equipment, and you must take good care of it. Clean it after every major fire or hazardous material cleanup, take care of it, keep it out of the sun, don't leave it in a truck bed where anyone could come up and walk off with it, keep the velcro clear of fuzz that will keep it from closing tight, always store it in the gear bag that comes with it. Take care of your gear, and in return it will take care of you when you are in a life-threatening situation. This is your new best friend."

What an exciting night thursday was. We each got handed a bag full of fire gear, and I was stoked about getting to play with it. Lucky for me, we were about to spend the rest of the 4-hour class just learning how to put it on properly.

A firefighter has to be able to go from street-clothes to being fully dressed and ready for action in an extraordinarily short amount of time. Many of the calls they run are time sensitive, and another few minutes can mean the difference between a kitchen fire and a house fire, a simple rescue and an injury extrication, life and death. Because of the tendency for emergencies to continue to get worse until someone arrives to stabilize it, the training that goes into something as simple as getting dressed quickly is intense. By the end of the recruit class, we need to be able to don all of our gear in under 60 seconds. That might not sound like it's too terribly difficult, but as clumsy and bulky as all the bunker gear is, I'm not suprised to know that the most common point of failure for a new recruit when they're testing for their certification is being unable to meet that 60 second mark.

So how do you train someone to do this stuff by muscle memory?

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

You get the idea.

Before we even got to start touching the actual bunker gear, we were split up into crews and taken into the equipment bay, and each crew had one instructor who led them through a mime of the entire process. Yes, a mime. It probably sounds silly, and you know what? It looks silly too. But believe it or not, by the time we got to touching the gear, we all knew exactly what to do.

Instructor (holding an imaginary gear bag): "Your bag is in hand. Set it down, open it up. Kick off your street shoes" (we all kick off our shoes).

Instructor: "Mistake one. We are miming. You all just took your shoes off for real. Put them back on and try again." (I don't think he was trying to be demeaning here, I think the point was being made early that accuracy and precision in all actions is important, and that if we miss we start over).

Instructor: "Gear bag is in hand. Set it down, open it up. Shoes off..." (Nobody actually took off their shoes this time) "..Boots out. Right foot in, left foot in. Pants up. Right suspender, Left suspender. Close the pants fly, and lock it..."(There's a small hook and eye device that backs up the velcro that holds the bunker pants shut. Of course, at this point we're just waving our hands in the air, but we got the idea)"...Where is your hood? Right pants pocket. Hood out, over your head..." (Firefighters wear a hood made of Nomex, a fire-retardent material, to protect their necks and shoulders from being exposed where the coat and helmet don't meet)"...Tuck the hood into your right suspender, then into your left suspender. Coat out of the bag, right arm, left arm, zip it up, close the storm flap, pull the collar around and velcro it shut. Helmet on, chinstrap tight. Where are your gloves? Left pants pocket. Gloves out, right glove on, left glove on. Done, now we're dressed."

This process took about 5 minutes to go through the first time. At that moment cutting it down to 60 seconds seemed like a pretty daunting task. Even in the time that I've been practicing putting this stuff on at home since I got the gear on thursday, my best time is 71 seconds, still eleven seconds short of what I need to pass.

We continue throughout the evening putting the gear on and packing it away under different circumstances. Most interesting was the discussion on POV response. For those not in the know, POV means "Personally Operated Vehicle". When I'm driving my car to a fire (not driving or riding on a firetruck), I'm a POV. Here's the interesting part: When you get a page that indicates a call you need to respond to, you drive to it, following all traffic laws, and yielding to all emergency vehicles. Just because you're driving to a fire doesn't mean you get to speed, blow intersections, pass people on non-passing roads, seize the right of way at a four-way stop, or do anything else other than drive normally. I'm sure that surprised at least one of the recruits in the class, but it makes sense when you think about it. Yeah, you need to get there so that you can help out, but how much help will you be if you blow an intersection and get broadsided by a semi truck? Your accident scene will actually consume more emergency response personnel who could be working on the incident you were driving to. Must be tough, though, when you're riding an adrenaline rush knowing that you're about to get involved in something serious.

Anyway, I think I'm going to head back to the living room and try to beat my current best time for donning this stuff.

And we're off

Last night was the first night of training for my recruit class, and I couldn't have been more excited. After sharing a sushi dinner with my brother in the parking lot of a local grocery store, I drove to the district office and found my classroom where all the other recruits were gathered. This part was everything I expected: "Welcome", this is the staff who will be teaching you, these are all the other recruits, everybody introduce yourselves, etc (after all, they wouldn't have us running into burning buildings on night one, would they?).

What I didn't expect was the meat of the lecture last night, which had nothing to do with fire, medical emergencies, hazardous materials, radios, chainsaws, big trucks, air packs, or anything else I was prepared to hear about; instead, we talked about customer service.

This is how you treat people.

This is how you DON'T treat people.

Soft skills? Really? No ropes, no hoses?

Not what I was expecting; but as it turned out, very interesting. We heard some pretty cool stories about things that firefighters have done in the past. They took care of a man's dog while he was in the hospital, cooked a families thanksgiving dinner in the station ovens after their kitchen caught fire, helped pack and move a families belongings after their house burned down. To condense it to a sentence, the primary job of a Firefighter is to "Do the Right Thing".

I don't have any gear yet; there are no lights on my car, no pager on my belt. It'll be a while before I can save a life. But I can start doing my primary job as a firefighter today, before I ever find myself on a fire-ground.

Who would've thought?

Sitting Out

Here I am, blogging from a new location, live from my district's Station 8. I came out here to pick up my brother so that he and I could move some furniture for our parents, but right as I arrived a call came in for a Natural Cover Fire that his station had to respond to. Now I'm hanging out in their office while he and his buddies from the station ride off to put it out. Through the station speakers overhead, I can here the dispatcher giving out instructions, and my brother's voice coming back over the radio, sirens loud in the background. Yeah. I'm jealous.

Oh well, just a few more months until that's me too. Until then I'll have to be content just listing in and sitting out.

Crossfit

Ever since my interview with the Fire District, I've been going to the gym regularly trying to get myself in better shape before training. In the course of that preparation, I came upon Crossfit on the web as a strong circuit-training program that could help me improve my overall health. 1 month in, and I'm a believer.

Crossfit gives you a different workout on their blog every day (1 out of 4 is just a "Rest Day", 3 on 1 off), and they are specifically designed not to get you into a routine. Some focus on strength, some on stamina, some on cardio-endurance, and you never get bored because you never know what's coming up next. Also, there's a large community behind the program that's more encouraging than competitive (the idea being that you're "competing with yourself"), and that makes it fun to push yourself a little bit.

Is fitness important for a firefighter? Let me put it this way: the cause of over 50% of all line-of-duty deaths is cardio-related. High-stress, lots of adrenaline spikes, combined with a life-style that may have more than average junk-food (it's a group of mostly guys living together, what do you expect?), your heart takes a beating. What's the best way to keep your heart healthy? Good food, and good exercise (So I've also been eating a lot of fruits and veggies, a habit I hope to continue throughout my life).

Anyway, recruit class is coming up fast, but now I feel ready at least for the physical component of it.