May 16, 2009

Ooh, mommy look. Firemen. Mommy, there's going to be a fire.

The building demolition was scheduled for 8:00am and it started promptly. Since the inside was so nasty, they decided to not set up several scenarios inside for people to practice on but to work a bunch of their equipment on the outside of the building. There were fourteen new volunteers who had never manned a hose or run a saw so they got some valuable experience. The trainees came from as far as thirty miles away so this was a valuable training experience for several departments, not just our own. I was there with a camera:
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They not only brought a bunch of fire engines and tankers,
they also had an aid car standing by.

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A look at a pumpers control panel.
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Running the hoses out.

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Training a couple new people on the saw.
This is an abrasive cutoff wheel that can go through anything, concrete, metal, wood...

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A thorough briefing - very safety concious...

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They stacked some pallets in the basement to serve as kindling.
The fire was lit with a highway flare.

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A final walk-though to check the building -- again, very safety conscious.

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The first wisp of smoke -- things happened very quickly after that.

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Needless to say, there was a lot of interest from the locals.

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051609_breakthrough02.jpg

Breakthrough - the first fire outside the building wall.

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Learning how to run a hose -- there is a lot of water pressure there and it takes a good measure of control.

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The various teams rotated around several exercises.
Everybody was having a great time.

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This is no longer a house...

051609_a_smoking_hole.jpg
A couple people stayed to monitor the fire and to make sure
it didn't flare up. This was shot later this afternoon.
The place is now a smoking hole in the ground...
There was none of the distress of a real house fire -- this was on purpose and nobody was in danger, the firemen knew exactly what they were walking into. And the title of this post comes from a line in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Posted by DaveH at May 16, 2009 5:49 PM