Well I was out on a frozen lake yesterday jumping in and out of the water (ok so it was more like crawling out of the water).... Yay training ...... Well the suit leaked (which is normal) and I got a nice sunburn on my face. Well aside from the normal bumps and bruises I get every time I do one of these trainings everything went ok, and after a long hot shower the important stuff dropped back into place.
Today I was dispatched to a call that could best be described as "different".
I was dispatched to a report of a seagull, that seemed to be hanging in mid air over a small open field. When I arrived this is what I found. *Note: There is no blood in the video but if you'rte a bunny hugger you might find it offensive.* http://s168.photobucket.com/albums…
It seems that there was kite string caught between two trees, and a seagull got caught in the kite string and it was hanging about 30 feet in the air. http://i168.photobucket.com/albums…
Well it didn't take a genius to figure out I needed help so I called dispatch and had a BRT *big red truck* come down and assist me. http://i168.photobucket.com/albums…
Well it only took us a few minutes to recover the gull, at which point I transported it to my kennel where we removed the remaining string from its wing and we released it back into the wild. http://i168.photobucket.com/albums…
Friday night my company was dispatched to a neighboring department, to provide mutual aid at a structure fire. our response time was pretty good for a call company, as both pieces that were dispatched were on the road within 5 minutes. We had a pretty good response time and we covered the 10.6 miles to the call in short order.
On arrival our engine was assigned as the water supply pumper for the scene and we set up for a folding tank / tanker shuttle operation. Our tanker was assigned to the tanker shuttle portion of the operation.
Myself an another firefighter we immediately released from the water supply operation by the Capt and sent into the scene. As we were walking in to the fire it became immediately apparent that the structure was a total loss before our units ever arrived on scene. The structure which contained a single family residence as well as a full machine shop, was completely leveled and approximately 1.5 acres of the surrounding area (grass, brush and trees as well as several pieces of heavy equipment and multiple vehicles were burning.
We were able to knock down the exterior fires quickly and with the help of an excavator and pay-loader that were already on scene we quickly contained the brush fire.
Due to the nature of this occupancy and its use there were several drums and tanks filled with oils, fuels, and solvents that helped to feed the fire. there were also multiple 100 lb propane tanks, acetylene tanks and oxygen thanks within the building that most likely aided in the building destruction.
All said and done 6 departments responded to the scene and we were there for approximately 6 hours before being cleared by command. I do not know of any first responder or civilian injuries.
I don't have any on scene pics of this one, so here is an aerial view of the building, and yes all of the "stuff" that you can see surrounding the structure was there last night.
My week thus far..... Saturday: Dispatched to a reported working structure fire. Prior to our units arrival on scene, dispatch received a call from an out of town firefighter on scene who advised the house was heavily involved. Base on that info the responding chief officer upgraded the response to a working fire.
All said and done the fire went to three alarms and a tanker task force group was sent to the scene because we had no reliable water supply in that area (there was a 10,000 gallon cistern 1100 feet from the fire but we quickly drained that). Additionally two FF's went to the hospital when the chimney came down and struck the tower bucket that they were in. We were advised when we left the scene that both of the FF's were at the hospital and that they were ok.
Sunday .... Sunday morning found us in wet turnout gear at a fatal 1 car motor vehicle collision.
Well that's the weekend so far, I hope the rest of it is much less eventful. <input ... ><input ... >
The Mate and I had just gotten home from a motorcycle ride when my FD pager went off. It seams a couple of canoes filled with drunks had tried to go over the falls. Well two of the canoeists made it out of the water by the time we arrived and of course the remaining canoeists were on a rock in the river.
Well long story short, the kids grabbed the wrong gear off the water rescue truck when they rushed down to the river bank. My self and another more "experienced" (AKA the old guys) firefighter took our time, got the right gear and headed down to the scene. I love the look of the faces of the young guys faces when we show up with the right gear and just go to work, and wind up being the two guys who go out into the water and make the recovery. (Every time I do that, I remind myself why the "experienced" guys got such a chuckle out of it when I made the same mistakes)
Nothing too exciting, package the victims and use the ParaTech rescue float to get them back to the shore.
Well I survived "Ireneagedon" and her attack on the Northeast. The storms final track was far enough west, that the damage to my area was minimal. I lost the electrical service to my home at about 10:30am on Sunday as I was getting ready to head down to the fire station for storm coverage. I wasn't too worried about leaving my family back at the ranch alone, because about 45 seconds after the power went out I heard my standby generator fire up followed by a and audible "clunk" as the transfer switch changed from the utility company to my generator.
I then went down to the station and signed in with the Lt. in charge, he assigned me to the rescue pumper as the company officer. Well as you can imagine what that involved was a lot of "tree down" calls for service. I headed home at about 7pm so my mate could get some sleep before she headed off to work and I then took over child care duties for the evening.
Well the following day life then returned something that resembled normal, however we were still without out power for two more days. The biggest hero as far as my family is concerned in this whole event was the standby generator that kept going for 58 hours.
Stay Safe and as our power company always says... "No line is safe to touch... EVER"
Well we had our 4th woods fire in a week on Sunday night, all four fires have been deemed to be of suspicious origin and are in the same part of town. The first three were all beside the road and we got them contained quickly. It seems that our gremlin has decided to venture off road and this last one came in at 8pm and was around 4 acres all said an done.
Of course the little snot had to pick a place we couldn't even get to with our 6x6. So that left us with progressive hose lays and hose packs to get water into the the fire. Well as you can imagine any terrain that can be difficult going for a 6x6 is hard on guys as well. Once I took over operations the first thing I did was have them hump in our two little suitcase generators and some tripod lights. The Dept doesn't have any head lamps and most of the guys don't have one either, so the tripods made for much safer working conditions.
I'd estimate fire spread at about 1 chain per hour with a maximum flame length of about 10 feet. It took us 4 hours to knock it down and contain enough, so that we could pull out and wait for day light.
Now I can't tell you what they found in the day light, as I had to be at my real job in the morning.
Well I added some red & white LED's to my motorcycle a couple of weeks ago, well as you all know nothing in the inter-net is complete without pictures so here we go.
Hello all, I recently ran across something that I thought I would offer to the furry community before anyone else. I know sometimes things can be hard to come by and even at a reasonable price. So I'm hoping this will be a good offer and a good price.
Offering two Cairn Pioneer SCBA
Last tested in 2004, They've sat in the Meadville Fire Department surplus room. They were maintained but little used as the department staff lessened and relied on volunteer fire fighters. As the rules of the city all items in surplus that are no longer needed can not be donated but must be auctioned. (As per I'm told)
There both the Cairn Pioneer. They both have the 6 led heads up display and a computer controlled alarm. One has a larger box alarm and the other has a smaller box alarm. Both tanks are aluminum and a pressure of 2,000 psi.(empty) Tanks last tested in 2004. One mask is a Large- Medium the other is a Medium - Small. I do have three aluminum and fiber reinforced tanks. One green, 4,5000 psi, tested 1994. (has 3.000 pounds of air.) (will be emptied before shipping)One yellow 2,000, tested 2004. (empty) One black, 2,000 psi, no test date.
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