Sometimes we're just silly

Last night at training I had a good look at how to check over the BA (breathing apparatus equipment,) to make sure it's all ready to go. Most of the information goes over my head as I'm already suffering overload with my wildfire suppression course. For that reason I didn't want to try using it, though I did put it on. It was heavy but relatively comfortable.

Spent half my time laughing at some of the brigade members learning how to perform different lifts on one another. (Lifts as in how to remove a person from a burning house safely, or from a dangerous place.) Some of the girls can be quite small and some of the guys are very big, in height and sometimes in width. It can make for some great viewing.

We also did a mock search and rescue. We were blindfolded and went upstairs in pairs of two, both connected to a guide rope with a smaller rope and clip attached to the guide rope on one side and to ourselves on the other. We had to guide ourselves around the room this way until we found the hidden briefcase. It was really difficult as you become completely disorientated. It was a good little exercise to demonstrate how confusing it can be and to practice being quick and adept at moving in places with limited vision.

It's a serious business, learning to be a firefighter, and it comes with many responsibilities, but it is nice, (and important,) just to be able to bond with each other over a bit of silliness I reckon.

Last Sunday I got to use the long town branch. The long town branch can pack a wallop. It was pushing out 1100 kpa, and can push out over 1000 litres in one minute and it will knock a structure over or blast through a window. It takes two or three people to hold it. One to take control of the branch with a special hand lock. The other two hold the hose behind him and the last person leans into the middle one who leans into the branch operator. They use their weight to counteract the weight of the water, which converts the hose to something that feels like a steel rod.

Next Fire Season

Next fire season supposed to be as bad as the last.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/state-faces-worstever-fire-season-20090728-e06s.html

Almost finished basic training

I planned to submit posts to this site regularly, but life got in the way. I've forgotten about my normal neurotic fascination with dying, why I can't break through into the writer's market, how I'm getting old, and what a waste my life will all be if I can't leave something substantial behind to prove I'm here. I've forgotten these things because I'm too focused on living life. I don't even suffer anxiety attacks anymore. I'm too busy. Isn't it bizarre how being consumed with the art of survival and helping others, can remove all the fears you have surrounding those very things? You would imagine that keeping away from the things that trigger your fears would be sensible, yet it's facing them that works. This is common sense I suppose, but there is something paradoxical about it as it throws you into the very situation you fear, and the fear is not unfounded in this case at least. I may find myself in that life threatening situation one day. Suddenly everything is in clear and logical perspective, Grab life, tear a big chunk off it and chew like mad, because it's so fleeting and in the end, you really only have minimal control.

I've spent all winter shivering in turtleneck jumpers and tracksuit pants under cotton yellow turn out gear; getting wet at the ends of hoses, at the sides of hydrants, by the edges of rivers, having fun, fun, fun, (except for that bout of swine flu we all got,) knowing all the while that the day it will come when I won't be simply freezing in a mild Victorian winter, but boiling like a stuffed lobster in the next unbearable Victorian summer. The same cotton suit that barely keeps me warm now, will feel like it's suffocating me then. I've been training all winter for that day.

I've been reading my wildfire firefighting training manual, learning how to read maps, how to predict the course of a running fire over the map, how to choose safe routes to the fire, how to use two-way radio communication and memorize all the call signs, how to read army time, understand wildfire suppression theory, learn different kinds of firefighting attacks and strategies, how to protect the point of origin, chain of command, asset and property protection, pump operations, extinguishing agents, hand tools and hoses and fittings ... is that all? I think so though something tells me not quite ... working around machinery and aircraft? PPC, protecting yourself in a flashover, how to draught water from a creek or river?

On top of that I turned up to my local brigade every Sunday and when I can on Wednesday nights to practice all these things, and whatever else is going on, even when I'm not training to qualify for the other things.

We have our last prac session this coming Sunday and then have two weeks break to go back to our station and practice draughting and knot tying until our final practical assessment. Mapping assessment was my biggest challenge, although I did manage reasonably well, but I blitzed the wildfire suppression paper. My assessor said I'd done the best assessment paper he'd ever marked, "If I didn't know better I'd have thought you cheated .. textbook." Am I proud? Hell yeah! I threw everything into learning it. And I was encouraged to be proud by the assessor's big smile.
I know it might be considered sexist, but a lot of this stuff does come more naturally to the men and I felt I had to work very hard at it. The skills involved were not skills I exercised regularly, especially on the mechanical side of things.

Anyway, that's six months of training down and even now I sense just how green we are and how much more we have to learn on the field. What happens next? After we complete the course, our captain is issued with our pagers, and he decides when each of us are ready to begin turning out. We get our very own set of yellows with boots and helmets.