Smoke, Fire, Power Saws & Pushups

 The weeks roll along faster now, the rhythm is steady and each day brings a new set of skills and challenges. For the most part they're more enjoyable skills than in weeks past. We're faster, stronger and better than we were. We're more capable. This week we had our first interaction with live fire.

Wax on, wax off. We got to put some of our previous training to use for Ventilation. We hoisted ladders, extended charged hose lines and ventilated hydraulically out a window. While it wasn't as dark as 'the maze' we did weeks ago, it was still very hard to see in the smokey environment rendered by smouldering wet hay and road flares. Full gear on, we went into the building, located the source of smoke and ventilated using the hose to draw smoke out the with the water stream. Convection never looked so cool.

We also ascended the 35' ladder to the roof to simulate ventilating a pitched roof. Not as fun as hydraulic ventilation but still worthwhile.

It's now common for firefighters to horizontally ventilate using a chainsaw but before we could do that we had to do it the old school way - with an axe. After we roughed-in a hole with an axe we got to use the chainsaw to finish the job. Cutting through the deck was sweaty without a respirator. My mask fogged up with condensation and sweat. It wasn't long before I couldn't see (I'd already cut my hole by then.) Under real conditions we would have been on air but there's only so much in a tank and we needed for the other skills.

Friday concluded with class on Extinguishers and some live fire skills. A propane rig was assembled and ignited. We practiced turning off the fire one by one. I turned my back on the rig after I'd extinguished it - a big no-no. That cost me 40 pushups. I didn't count them out loud enough. I can't hear you Mr. Kennedy. That cost me 40 more. My total for the day was 160. I did the first 80 earlier that morning after I bet Captain Perez double or nothing that I'd score 100% on my Loss Protection exam. I got 95%. The house always wins.

Next week is week six. I can't believe we're almost halfway there. Katie is meeting me in San Antonio next weekend. I'm totally stoked.