It just keeps getting better and better. We've been doing scenarios, rolling up lights-and-sirens in the engine and assessing the scene, rescuing the victims and turning off the fire. It takes a lot of quick thinking, communication and team work. Each man has a job which must be preformed at the right time or everything can fall apart. One wrong move, one hesitation or a bit of tunnel vision and the whole operations spirals into failure.
Our facepieces have become part of our ensemble like a pair of sunglasses or a baseball hat. Sweat lets you know you're still alive. And when you get out and bunker down the cool 30ºC breeze is a welcome relief. Refill the tank, have a bit of water and do it all again.
I'm not sure how he knew, but Captain Sherwood called me out to assist in filming some of our burns with his iPhone. 3,000km from home and some how I'm still at work. I don't mind though, really. It means I get to go twice as often as the other guys and experience the burn from incipient to extinguishment. And it turns out that iPhones can take a lot of heat. It's also interesting that if your bunker gloves are wet they can conduct electricity from your finger to the screen - making them a $50 pair of superheat resistant iPhone gloves.
Our final experience on the fireground was with the propane and kerosene props. They were our night burns. Fireballs, thirty foot flames, ungodly screeches from steel structures - everything you could ask for. We went out with a bang, an extremely loud and incredibly awesome bang.
Dude...That's AWESOME! Amazing shots.
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