Knit & Play with Fire

Townhouse Fire aka Playtime Part 3

Okay, yet another posting about fire. I warned everyone that I have been out playing this week. Monday morning, I was at work when I heard Box 1-4 go out a little after 10 am. I had a feeling that my company would be going in to the city. When I heard the chief advise on the main channel that he had a heavy column of black smoke, I started getting ready to go down to the fire hall. And for me getting ready means taking out my earrings if I am wearing dangly earrings and pulling my hair back into two ponytails (one high and one low to keep my hair off of my face when I pull on my hood.)

I was already in my truck when the second alarm was hit out and on my way to the station when my tones were hit. I was almost at the station when I heard that there were possibly up to 6 people trapped. Let's just say my comment as I walked into the station with one of the guys was something to the effect that I was going to be on the wrong truck. (Add a few swear words of your choosing here.)(And an explanation for those of you who might not understand, the first truck on the scene handles search and rescue and by the time we got there, we would either be the second or third truck. And the first truck on the scene was the truck that I ride in the city.) There were 2 rescues but they were just a matter of removing people from adjoining townhouses.

When we rolled up on scene, there were flames shooting up through the roof as evidenced by some of my photos. Actually one of the guys I ride with took the photos of the flames on the roof. A few of the guys are getting familiar with my camera and how to use its various features. And they will grab it and take pictures themselves since they now know why I am taking pictures and what the plans are for the pictures. Plus I am now known county wide for taking pictures on scene and that I do share the photos so almost everyone who takes photos shares.

My job was to make sure that command knew that I had a thermal imager camera ready as a backup for any entry crew. We didn't want to take it up on the roof and have it be needed by an entry team. So basically all I did was hang out with the command crew and take photos.

The cause of the fire was determined to be a discarded cigarette tossed into a flower pot next to the house on the rear deck. Yeah, not smart!

But in the end, everyone went home safely and played together like good little children. And the only damage was to property which can be replaced. And the best part of the whole fire call for me was getting a hug from one of my fellow fire fighters from my other company when he came out of the house after being up on the roof. Trust me, there are some advantages to being a female fire fighters. And I am the only active female fire fighter currently running at either house.

Look for knitting content to resume fairly soon.

Play Time!! - Part I

Yes, I have been out playing!!! An instructor that I am friends with had an extra night burn for his fire 1 students Friday night and I went to take photos. And I managed to get some really great shots. I will adopt the do not ask and I will not have to tell policy as to how I managed to get some of these shots since my gear was in my truck. Both sets of gear remained in the truck all night!

Play Time - Part 2

Okay, I played fire photo journalist on Friday night. And Saturday morning, bright and early, I got to play fire fighter! I was at the truck house early to ride. I wasn't even there 15 minutes before we got a call. It was a simple bells & whistles aka an automatic alarm but that is how the day started out. When we got back, the chief was there and they were trying to figure out how to get everything down to the training center for a drill. One of the 2 trucks was out of service for mechanical reasons. So that meant that the 1 truck could not take part in the drill.

Since I am not a full fledged member of the truck house, I wasn't sure if the chief would let me participate in the drill. The career guys decided to take the truck on down to see what all was going on plus this allowed one of the guys to get some driver's training time in. When we got down there, the chief came over to me and told me to pull my gear from the truck because I was going to be allowed to play. Actually, the chief and the deputy chief had decided that they wanted to evaluate my skills and those of the other fire fighter there. Okay, the reality was that there were 3 white hats from the truck house and only one black helmet; I made it 2 black helmets. But the other thing is that it meant I got to play with the boys!

Because we were working without the truck, they had to be creative in what we could do. We threw some ladders and 1 crew took the hose line in and the other crew performed search and rescue. I was search and rescue with the deputy chief.

Yes, I did save the dummy. And no, I do not mean another fire fighter but the hose dummy. I saved the victim and went back in to start the search of the next level. Except that I realized that I had one little problem; I was becoming pretty dehydrated and that I needed to get out. I passed this info on to my deputy chief and he sent me out with the chief. (We had been fully geared up and standing out outside in full turnout gear for about 30 minutes in the full sun before we even got started.) I was okay after drinking plenty of water.

We were only allowed to play during one evolution but we still had fun. And after the drill, we went to another station for lunch. After wards, my buddy Rob and I headed home to shower and change before heading back down to ride for the rest of the day. We ran a few more commercial alarms that afternoon and 1 box. The box turned out to be nothing. We never even made it to the scene before we were placed back in service. But it was a fun day. And I learned quite a bit.

 

And just to help id some of the people in the photos, the one with the 3 firefighters together without helmets are my chiefs at the truck house. And the one photo with the gentleman with the silver hair is "da boss". He is one of the head guys at the county level for the career guys. He is also a retired battalion chief from Montgomery County.

Photo of the Week

Okay, we all know that I combine fire fighting and knitting somehow. But the other week I posted some photos that I took when I was fooling around with my camera at the truck house where I run. And Joe from Firewhirl has chosen one of the photos to be the photo of the week this week. So pop on over to see what he has to say. And here is the photo again. My favorite truck!!! The photo is called Waiting simply because we are always waiting for another call.

Playing Around with the Camera

After the fire Friday afternoon, I went down to the truck house to ride for he evening. And no, we didn't go anywhere while I was there. Although we did go out for dessert after dinner. But two of us were playing around with the camera and taking perspective shots and here are the results after I played around with the photo editing. And yes, the guys did end up running later that night. They ran 2 calls after 1 am.

Do You Want Fires with That?

Friday afternoon was interesting. We had already had 2 accident calls for the day but the best call was yet to come. Around 3 pm, I heard the call go out for another company at the other end of town for a mulch fire next to the building at one of the Taco Bell/KFC combos that we have around here.

Well, let's just say that what started out as a mulch fire turned into a 2 alarm fire. When the first unit arrived on scene, they found smoke showing and requested that the box be filled. The fire was put out using ladder pipes; in other words, hose lines off of the aerials were used.

My station was dispatched for the second alarm. By the time we got there, the fire was pretty much knocked. We ended up helping to boost the water pressure to another unit. And I had time to take a few pictures of one of my favorite pieces of apparatus - the truck!!! And my favorite crew was working Friday as well.

And yes, the establishment is closed and word is that they have already started demolition and the renovation process.

Who Knew & Other Fire Related Stuff

According to a national survey, firefighting is the sexiest job out there. Who knew? I mean, obviously the people answering this survey have never taken a close look not only at what we do but at the shape many of the guys are in. That is not to say that most fire fighters are not physically fit but they just don't look it. And we do a hot dirty job. You really wouldn't think we are sexy after we are done fighting a fire. Trust me, we need a shower after fighting a fire.

And on a sad note for the Maryland fire service, there are some fire fighters facing criminal charges over their actions at a fire scene. I will not go into specifics about the incident but let's just say that that type of behavior has no place on the fire grounds. The allegations are about an incident involving career and volunteer fire fighters in Prince Georges county in Maryland. PG is one of the two Maryland counties that border DC. I know that there are some issues between the career and volunteer fire fighters down there but what happened should never have happened. If you really want to know more about what happened, just do a Google search.

I hope that this type of issue never happens up here where I run or anyway else for that matter. 'nuf said.

Woods Fire

Yesterday afternoon, we were dispatched to what went out as a house fire up near my brother's house. We were already en route when it was changed from a house fire to a woods fire. That was when I was really happy that I ended up on the tanker instead of the quint for once. The quint was placed back in service and they headed back to the station. Four of the guys who were on the quint ended up heading back out on one of our brush trucks while another got out our old brush truck.

We got on scene and headed up to the fire by climbing up and riding on the back of the brush units that were already there. We got lucky and the fire was extinguished before it really took off. There was probably less than an acre burned in all. It could have been worse given that the winds were picking up yesterday.

Hopefully, we will not have woods fires today because the winds are pretty nasty outside right now.

Being Teased

I stopped by the truck house where I have been running calls at lately for a few minutes. The truck house has the benefit of being located right in between both of the yarn shops. (How convenient for me!)

I had just left one of my LYS to after picking up the replacement needle that had broken. I needed to drop off my updated training records since I finally received the transcript from last fall's class.

Well, as soon as I walked in the door, our lieutenant started picking on me because he didn't see me on a call that morning. I reminded him that he doesn't run every call and that I had just stepped into the shower when the first call went out as an automatic alarm and that I did go down to the station to staff the next piece. And that sometimes there are more important things than running a call like a nice hot shower. The guys were just teasing since they knew that I had been up most of the previous night on a different call.

And than we got done to the serious business of going through photos from last week's fire that I had to take using a disposable camera. I have had to do some playing around with the contrast and fill light in order to get these photos half way decent. I am definitely upgrading my photo editing software really soon. One of the best features that I love about my digital camera is that I can turn the flash off and use the available light and you can not do that with a disposable camera. (And there is no zoom on the disposable that I was using!) Lighting on a fire scene is really interesting since you have lights from all of the equipment plus the light bars going. And our gear has reflective striping on it. So I think you can see how tricky it can be to take a good photo on a night scene. But here are some of the photos that I promised from last week's fire. 

And yes, the house was a total loss but that sometimes happens. We try to avoid losing a whole house but sometimes a fire will burn hot and fast and all we can do is try to prevent it from spreading.

Staying Busy with Fires

We have been staying busy with fires in our next due area this week. We had a house fire that was pretty much limited to one room and its contents on Tuesday. And today, we were initially dispatched to a garage fire.By the time, we were in route, it was changed to a barn fire. The barn just happens to be located across from a garage!

I would post some pictures of Tuesday's fire but the photos from today are much more interesting. What we were told when we got there was that the fire was in a beam. So that meant as the second truck crew, we got to do the destruction and overhaul.

There really was not that much fire there but the barn was in pretty bad shape to start with in the first place. We did a little creative re-arranging of the stall that was involved. We also shoveled out some hay. The guys from one of the other engines were finally able to get up on the second floor of the barn and move some the stuff off the beams that we were interested in. And just moving the weight helped things quite a bit. The beams moved when the weight was taken off of them.

The best part of this fire for me was that the barn was home to some pygmy goats and two llamas! Yes, I can go to a fire and find some thing fiber related. I am going to try and go up to this barn at some point and get some better photos of the goats and the llamas.

Added later - I have added the photos from this week's fire plus another one from last month to my albums. I will be adding descriptions to all of the photos slowly over the next week or so. The funny thing is that all of the fires have been in our next due's area.

And here is the description from IAFF Local 3666 website on the fire - On Thursday February 23rd 2006 just after lunch, Box alarm 22-01 was struck for the house fire accross from 11026 Hessong Bridge Road. First arriving E221 went on scene with smoke showing from a barn to the rear of the house. The crew from E221 stretched a 200' 3" leader line back the drive way and began an interior attack. Interior crews found a small fire in the alpha-bravo corner of the structure with extension into the second floor. The fire was knocked in approximately 10 minutes, and the crew from T1 checked for hot spots with a thermal imager. Units cleared in about an hour. Pictures soon