Ladders Are For Climbing....

So I was reading in my fire fighting book that a ladder is a device used to move up and down from one height to another. Deep I know. It was a good thought to start out our new training exercises: second story search and vent. What that consists of is:

• placing a ladder
• busting out a window
• bringing the window to just under the the window sill
• cleaning the window up of any attached glass
• going in as a crew and searching the floor for victims
• If a victim is found extricating them safely and quickly

The first few runs we went through and practiced without our air packs and a fully charged hose, just to get used to all the steps. Then we added a charged hose. Then our air packs. Then we added radios to practice speaking over them correctly. Then we added the incident command aspect to it. Scene size up, crews needed, assignments etc. At first it was kind of chaotic because everyone wanted to run through it as many times as possible. Some people struggled and we had some problems running through each scenario at first but that is the point of the class, to run out the kinks so that we can start doing it flawlessly. By our third time we had everything down and it couldn't have gone more smoothly.

I've been busting my butt in all my classes. I'm sitting in the A range for most of my classes and I have been doing really well on my Fire 101 tests. It's just been a lot of work, but I guess that is to be expected when you try to push four years of school into two.

I volunteered for a local cause last weekend. Women in Gear is a program that tries to get girls and women into the trade programs such as welding, fire fighting, etc. We had a good turn out. We let the girls try on our turn out gear, showed them crew integrity and let them try victim/patient rescue scenarios. We explained to them some of the training we are doing and how we go about getting into shape to do it.

Other than that nothing too exciting is going on, we're trying to start a Fire & Rescue Club so we can have fundraisers and do other things that require a club for. I don't know what that consists of but I hear we need a club to do most of it. So we are working on that. I have set up the Facebook page for us to post pictures for everyone to see. It's good for putting all the pictures up rather than having to put just a few up on here like I have been. It will give you more an idea of what we do.

Anywho, I'm off to upload pictures to Facebook. Stay tuned!!!!