Fire Department Tour

[Friends just call me Ross]

Had to take our car in to the local garage for an oil change/grease job.  

To kill some time, I walked over to the firehall

and snapped some photos with my phone.

Decided to put them together with some other FD photos

and offer you guys a tour of our little rural fire department:

 

Thinner me will be your guide.

 

 

This is our 2014 FD Photo:

Four more volunteers have since graduated from

the State of Michigan's Firefighter Training Council's

classes and have now joined our ranks.  

 

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

 

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

 

 

[Tortuga]

How big is the deck gun and how much does the water tender carry?

Do you train on foam?

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

 

 

[Tortuga]

How many brush trucks?

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

 

 

[Tortuga]

Do you have a PASS on the SCBA's?

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

I usually end up driving this truck.  

It has to do with the fact that I live farthest out

and this is the only truck left in the bays, 

by the time I get there. 

 

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

Sometimes I'm in town when my pager goes off.

So I get to drive the engine or the tanker.  

 

 

This is our 2015 FD Photo.  The probies are the ones

with the polo shirts.    

 

Me and the old brush truck are still fighting fires.

The brush truck is just holding up a lot better.  

 

 

Thanks for taking the tour!

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

Do you have a PASS on the SCBA's?

 

Yes.  We do the wiggle wiggle wiggle a lot at fires. 

Someone is always slapping someone on the back and singing,

"Shake, shake, shake.  Shake your booty." 

[Friends just call me Ross]

How big is the deck gun and how much does the water tender carry?

Do you train on foam?

 

 

and 3,000 gallons.  

We can't afford to train on foam on a regular basis.  It cost too much.

We used to use this stuff that made water wetter.  

It wasn't all that expensive and it worked great on hay and tire fires.

We have a foam fitting on our pumper (truck 3).  

Probably should train on foam, since

I can't recall the last time we used it. We'll get the foam company rep'

up and have him do the training with HIS foam.   

That's how we train on fire extinguishers.   

[Friends just call me Ross]

How many brush trucks?

 

Two.  The Jeep and the Dodge.  Both of our brush trucks spray as you go,

so you can fight grass fires without leaving the comfort of the cab. 

[Tortuga]

I love watching a hose team on back-up, they look like a line of bees wiggling their butts...

 

I love your trucks. I really like the brush truck. How much wildland hose do have on it? I use to carry a pack with 300 feet of 1"

 

 

Thanks for the tour!

Edited August 14, 2015 by Tortuga

[Tortuga]

We used to use this stuff that made water wetter.  

 

 

It's soap, it just reduces the surface tension.

[Tortuga]

I usually end up driving this truck.  

It has to do with the fact that I live farthest out

and this is the only truck left in the bays, 

by the time I get there. 

 

 

What is the yellow thing on the back of your truck? it looks like a temporary basin that we would use for foam.

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

What is the yellow thing on the back of your truck? it looks like a temporary basin that we would use for foam.

 

It's a 3,000 gallon portable dump tank.  

The tender dumps its load and goes off to refill.  

We draft from the portable dump tank

while the tender is hauling water to us.  

We have a 'tanker task force' in Alger County.  

When we need a LOT of water, we ask dispatch

to send out the tanker task force.  

6 or 7 tankers from neighboring departments

show up and haul us all the water we need.

We put two, three or even more dump tanks in a row

and siphon from one to another. 

Works slick!  

 

We have another portable dump tank on our tender:

[Tortuga]

It's a 3,000 gallon portable dump tank.  

 

 

That's what it looked like. I've used four of them at one time. I was thinking we used them during our foam training but I might be wrong. I know we used them like you did with the tender and I think we used them when we trained on drafting from the slough with the HEIL pump.

[Friends just call me Ross]

How much wildland hose do have on it? I use to carry a pack with 300 feet of 1"

 

 

On the Dodge, we have 150 feet of hard rubber 1"  hose on the reel line

and we just bought 200' of RED nylon-jacketed 1"

that we carry in the hose bed on top,

by the canister back-pack pumps. 

We got 4 of these

on the Dodge.

We carry a lot of hand tools, too.  

 

The hoses on the Jeep are inch and a halfs. 150' on the reel and another 200' connected in the back. 

The Jeep is also loaded with hand tools.

And we carry 6 of the soft backpack pumps on it.

The collapsible bags are a pain to refill.  So we are going to the hard packs.

 

Even though the 1" is lighter hose,

I don't think I'd want to have to pack it around.  

And, you are most welcome for the tour!  

(I had to think of something to do while I was waiting for the meteor shower.)

Just wish I had used my tablet instead of my phone.  

The phone pics are all blurry.

[Tortuga]

The 1" is a lighter hose, I think our pack had 300ft with a 10/40 nozzle. 

 

It looked similar to this one. 

Edited August 15, 2015 by Tortuga

[Tortuga]

We trained primarily on pressure fed hydrocarbon fires however we did have some wildland on site so we did some wildland fire training too.

 

I took this picture at the Fire Science Academy in Elko Nevada during training in 2005.

 

[Tortuga]

Sister Rosanne, I think you'll find this funny.

 

I was working on the landscaping at the Assembly Hall and it was over 100F so I had a long sleeve T-shirt on to protect my arms. When I took a water break I poured cool water on my sleeves to cool my wrists and forearms. A young brother saw me doing it so I explained how it helps cool the body. He was wearing a long sleeve T-shirt so he tried to pour water on his sleeves but it was a SPF shirt and the water beaded up and ran off so I reached over and pulled his cuff open and he poured cold water down the inside of his sleeve. He suddenly jumped and started slapping at his pants pocket, we both realized the water didn't soak into the inside of the shirt, it ran down his arm and chest and quickly filled his pants pocket with cold water! 

 

Lesson learned: Pouring cool water on your wrist or sleeves can cool your body but watching someone else pouring it in their pants pocket is funnier!