Spending the day in the shoes of a firefighter is tough work
It’s been said that to truly understand someone, you need to walk a mile in his or her shoes.
I had the opportunity to walk a few miles in a firefighter’s boots at the Lakeland College Emergency Training Centre’s (ETC) Firefighter For A Day event on Thursday, August 12.
My understanding of firefighting clicked in fairly early that day. Firefighting is tough work!
We began with a fitting for the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) masks. Although I wasn’t able to get fitted due to my reporter’s stubble, I watched the other participants as a computer tested their breathing while they wore the masks.
Emergency Training Centre instructor Thomas St. John operated the system and gave me a quick rundown on how it worked. Two tubes measured particulates within the mask and the air in the surrounding area and calculated whether the mask’s fit was suitable for the firefighter to breathe properly.
Next, we went to get our bunker gear. This consisted of boots,wooden hangers coveralls, pants, jacket, balaclava, helmet, gloves and SCBA. I learned shoe size does not apply when getting boots. I usually wear size 10 but my firefighting boots were size 8 and still fit comfortably.Find the best new deals on cheap cell phones Coveralls aren’t usually worn in summer but our instructors wanted to keep our clothes relatively clean. A lot of grimy soot builds up on the gear when fighting fires.
We learned how to prepare our SCBA. There’s a shoulder-mounted harness for the compressed air tank. It’s worn like a backpack but designed to be supported more from the hips. The harness also holds the pressure regulator and mouthpiece.
Once everything was hooked up, we walked around the centre’s smoke tower a few times to get used to breathing through the SCBAs. Randy Segboer, ETC chair, then opened the tower to us and this is when the “click” of understanding happened for me.
First of all, wearing my bunker gear added at least a few inches to my body’s radius. It’s like when you’re driving a car with running shoes and then putting on snow boots to drive. It just feels different and takes a while to get used to.
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Second, when using a SCBA, you need to be aware of your breathing. It has to be controlled and consistent, Segboer told us. I thought I was okay until we reached the third floor of the tower and I started feeling a bit restricted in my mask. I was considering tapping out but decided to focus on getting it under control.
Third, a firefighter often works in near-zero visibility. There wasn’t even any smoke in the tower and I could still barely see. Segboer said students often get lost in the smoke and must learn to be aware of their surroundings by using walls and teammates. I’m not claustrophobic but I can understand why some people are after wearing the bunker gear and moving around in almost complete darkness.
We also learned to walk backwards down stairs as we left the tower. This is because the SCBA changes a firefighter’s centre of gravity.
After the tower, we learned how to stack 38mm and 65mm hoses on a fire truck. They have to be neat and orderly so that they can be pulled cleanly off the truck. The 38mm hoses are attack lines; these are the ones held by firefighters near a fire. Brian Marlowe, ETC operation technician, told me 65mm hoses are used as supply or attack lines. For our training, we used them as supply lines, the hose that runs from a hydrant to the fire truck.
I discovered opening a hydrant is a simple but potentially dangerous process. It’s best to stand away from any of the nozzle caps. Segboer told us a hydrant has enough water pressure to lift a locomotive three feet off the ground! I made sure I was standing in a safe place when I opened the valve.
Once the hydrant was connected to the fire truck, the other participants entered the fire tower with Segboer and ETC associate instructor Guillaume Knowlden. I wasn’t able to join them since I hadn’t been officially fitted for the SCBA mask but I did get to see a bit of what was going on in the tower before the fire doors closed.
Wet hay is placed on a wooden pallet to lower the heat and produce lots of smoke, Marlowe explained. Even with wet hay it was about 400° near the floor in there and the ceiling was close to 1,000 degrees, as measured by Marlowe’s portable thermal imager.
The firefighters for a day used a technique called hydraulic ventilating to empty the smoke from the room. This involved blasting water out a window and I’m glad Segboer warned me about it as I was just about to take a picture from that window before the ventilating happenedoil painting reproductionThis ensures that the fund will be fully matched with the most of your wardrobe. However, there can be so many colors and designs may be difficult to resist the temptation to go from a neutral color. In this case, you can always invest in high quality designer purses, will match one or more of the most elegant wardrobes.Some Zhu Ming She Jishi 2 Baokuo your Hangers, Jiao Lian, Givenchy, and Veneta. These bonuses are not cheap, however. If you need is quality, which will cost several hundred dollars in low-end, in thousands of dollars premium leather designer handbags.