Ever seen a blue fire engine?
Chlorine IEDs smoking off.
UPDATE: I am pleased to find that I passed the certification exam.
Fire College
The Hazardous Materials course I attended this last four days was part of a larger 'Fire College' being held. This was a pretty impressive event, what I saw of it in breaks between class sections. Lots of different departments from all over came out to practice everything from high-rise firefighting to flammable bulk liquid firefighting, to rescue things like rope rescue rappelling or dealing with bombs and booby traps.
This proved to be engaging and interesting. There’s a lot of chemistry and physics involved in Hazmat work. We spent a lot of time with the Periodic Table, which turns out to be practically useful for the purpose. Vapor pressure, vapor density, specific gravity, all that is involved in calculating how to address a hazardous material and what steps to take. Everyone told me I would hate this class, but I really didn’t.
People don’t realize how much training goes into all this. A lot of it is folk spending their weekends, even taking their personal time off work, so they can participate.
Fire and EMS volunteers give so much to the community, and I feel pangs of guilt that my job's weird hours don't allow me enough time to participate.
ReplyDeleteIn one instance in trying to understand criticism of a department ("standing by to watch it burn" in the view of critics), I found myself reading about the "public protection classification of the Insurance Services Office. From what reading I did, it looks like virtually any expenditure in equipment and training for volunteers that would net a change in one step on the classification would more-than pay for itself in reduced home insurance costs for the people living in the area covered.
Perhaps one of the few instances where higher taxes are a good thing. Of course one also needs committed people to train and turn-out to calls.
That is indeed the first blue firetruck that I have seen. Red, orange, hi-viz yellow, yes, but not blue. Oh, and OD green, if you count fire trucks on military bases and at air shows. But not blue.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
I noted online two other US communities named "Pumpkin" with fire departments. One had trucks in the traditional red, and the other had the trucks painted the lighter orange color that one finds inside a pumpkin.
ReplyDeleteSee, that's what I thought too: if you were going to go with a highly unusual color for your fire apparatus, why not paint it pumpkin orange? But they went the other way, and used the one primary color not involved in orange. (My mother, who was a public school art teacher, would tell me that they went with the "complimentary contrasting color.")
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