Mutual-Aid is a Wonderful Thing!

[Friends just call me Ross]

Just came from a fully-involved structure fire.

Water tankers from neighboring departments responded as Mutual-Aid.

They don't show up too well in this video, but there were tankers/tenders

parked on both sides of the road for about a quarter of a mile.

 

 

The structure on fire was a house trailer and it was at the end of a really long, 

extremely narrow driveway.  We had to back in to dump our load of water.

The trailer was a total loss but there was no one living in it at the time of the fire.

The family had just moved in with the wife's mother.

 

The natural gas line ruptured and it took over two hours for the gas company

crew to arrive.

 

Me and E (E1) were the last truck out and the first truck back in.   

 

 

 

 

 

[Tortuga]

You just gotta love those pressure fed hydrocarbon fires....

 

Gotta love Mutual-Aid too. 

Edited December 11, 2015 by Tortuga

[Tortuga]

I hope you don't mind if I post a picture.

 

We use to train on pressure fed fires, I took this picture during Fire School about 10 years ago.

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

Don't mind a bit.  

Awesome photo!!!  

 

Needless to say, we did NOT put the gas-line-rupture fire out.  We just

babysat it and protected the exposures until the crew could get things

shut down.  Explosions, before we arrived on scene, had caused the rupture.

[Tortuga]

I remember watching a news report of a refinery fire and most of the streams were cooling the surrounding equipment while ERT was trying to isolate the source, The news reporter couldn't understand why they were not putting the hose streams on the fire...

[Tortuga]

Just came from a fully-involved structure fire.

Water tankers from neighboring departments responded as Mutual-Aid.

They don't show up too well in this video, but there were tankers/tenders

parked on both sides of the road for about a quarter of a mile.

 

YouTube says this video is private, I can't see it

[Nobody]

I used to be heavily involved in emergency response for industry, spent a lot of time at Texas A&M, the Pueblo AAR field and a few others, have you ever had a chance to train at A&M?

 

Interesting video of the scholl during what they call "Industrial Week"

 

Responders from all over the world show up to train and fry their brains. For some reason they do it during the hottest week of the year?

Edited December 11, 2015 by Your Brother

[Nobody]

I remember watching a news report of a refinery fire and most of the streams were cooling the surrounding equipment while ERT was trying to isolate the source, The news reporter couldn't understand why they were not putting the hose streams on the fire...

 

Most news reporters have no idea what they are seeing when they report on big fires. 

[Nobody]

I used to be heavily involved in emergency response for industry, spent a lot of time at Texas A&M, the Pueblo AAR field and a few others, have you ever had a chance to train at A&M?

 

Interesting video of the school during what they call "Industrial Week"

 

Responders from all over the world show up to train and fry their brains. For some reason they do it during the hottest week of the year?

 

Video  -  

Edited December 11, 2015 by Your Brother

[Friends just call me Ross]

YouTube says this video is private, I can't see it

 

This is the very first video I've ever posted to youtube.  I didn't make it private.

But I'll try to find out how to make it public.   

[Tortuga]

This is the very first video I've ever posted to youtube.  I didn't make it private.

But I'll try to find out how to make it public.   

 

It works for me now. Thanks.

[Tortuga]

I used to be heavily involved in emergency response for industry, spent a lot of time at Texas A&M, the Pueblo AAR field and a few others, have you ever had a chance to train at A&M?

 

Interesting video of the scholl during what they call "Industrial Week"

 

Responders from all over the world show up to train and fry their brains. For some reason they do it during the hottest week of the year?

 

No, I never had a chance to go to Texas A&M, we trained at FSA in Elko, NV. The facilities in Elko closed down so the company started using A&M but I wasn't in ERT at the time. I heard that it was hard to schedule a date and sometimes the hottest week of the year was the only thing available. I personally believe the Texans did that on purpose so they could laugh at the non-Texans...

[Tortuga]

Video  - 

 

Thanks for posting that, that is exactly what we would do at FSA in Nevada. On the last night of the school we would start late and stay late for a Night Burn, they would light up several props and do a full simulation. Sometimes I was the IC but it was more fun being on a hose team or monitor.

 

I liked the guy chasing the Blitzfire, I've seen that happen. He didn't anchor it off or have his hose lay right.

 

I liked the shot of the big guns, I was on a 6000 GPM Ambassador a few times, pretty impressive. 

 

They mentioned lightning, we had to evacuated and shelter in one of the storage sheds one time when the lightning got too close to the facility. Pretty interesting time.

 

Thanks for the memories.

 

BTW: There was a lot of terminology that people might not be familiar with, 'making the block' refers to blocking in or closing a valve to isolate the fuel source.

[Tortuga]

I searched YouTube to see if any our fire school videos were posted and I only found one video, it isn't very impressive. I know the guy sitting on the bucket, he was on my crew, his years of training are demonstrated in the video...

 

[Nobody]

No, I never had a chance to go to Texas A&M, we trained at FSA in Elko, NV. The facilities in Elko closed down so the company started using A&M but I wasn't in ERT at the time. I heard that it was hard to schedule a date and sometimes the hottest week of the year was the only thing available. I personally believe the Texans did that on purpose so they could laugh at the non-Texans...

 We went to ELKO one year. I was on the Occidental corporate hazardous materials team. While we were there we had some team members receive minor chemical burns because staff did not clean the breathing air masks properly. Pure bleach, no rinse is what was determined. We had the field to ourselves as they were shutting the site down due to benzene contamination of the ground water. Seems whoever the contractor was that built the site did not build to spec, did not seal with the proper thickness for the ground liner. The fuel for the fires seeped into the ground and contaminated it.  

 

Beautiful site though.

[Nobody]

No, I never had a chance to go to Texas A&M, we trained at FSA in Elko, NV. The facilities in Elko closed down so the company started using A&M but I wasn't in ERT at the time. I heard that it was hard to schedule a date and sometimes the hottest week of the year was the only thing available. I personally believe the Texans did that on purpose so they could laugh at the non-Texans...

 

We did laugh a little. A lot of the individuals who came would go wild during there down time. 

 

 Lot of breathing air masks filled with the nasty the next day.        

 

That week we would have a lot of out of towners, from the middle east as well. We were warned never to cross our legs in their presence as showing them the bottom of our boots was an insult. 

[Tortuga]

 We went to ELKO one year. I was on the Occidental corporate hazardous materials team. While we were there we had some team members receive minor chemical burns because staff did not clean the breathing air masks properly. Pure bleach, no rinse is what was determined. We had the field to ourselves as they were shutting the site down due to benzene contamination of the ground water. Seems whoever the contractor was that built the site did not build to spec, did not seal with the proper thickness for the ground liner. The fuel for the fires seeped into the ground and contaminated it.  

 

Beautiful site though.

 

We didn't have any problems with their equipment but it was SOP to wipe your own mask before using it.

I heard about their water contamination issues, it affected how much fuel we could use during a burn.

It was a beautiful site. Good food too.