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Beach posted:After five years of trying I was selected for my local full time department and was just approved last night by the town government. Attending the state run academy in May, gave my notice at work, got fitted for bunker gear, attended orientation earlier this week at the academy, feeling pretty unstoppable right now. Congrats dude! Also, beyond the usual stuff, anyone have any advice for a Chief's interview? I have one on Thursday.
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Mar 26, 2016 22:26
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Toned out to a two car MVA on a stretch of road we have known for fatalities or other bad poo poo. Get there and it's a minivan rear-ending a sedan at 50 mph or more. Driver of sedan is fine, it seems, maybe, other than hip/abd and shoulder pain that generally line up with wearing a seatbelt. Other than that, driver seems fine... And the $150 bottle of scotch in her trunk survived. I wish I got the make and model of her car 
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Apr 3, 2016 08:05
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About to start my first season as a wild land firefighter on a type II handcrew. Anyone got any pointers or things you wish someone told you before you started your first season? I don't really know what to expect besides a lot of hiking, training, cutting/digging stuff. Anyways, I already bought brand new pair of whites and have been wearing them daily for more than a month now, few hikes with them too, pretty broken in I'd say. Running as much as I can every week mainly trail runs (3-5 miles per run, 3 times a week), completely stopped doing weights and instead have been focusing on body weight excersizes (push-up/pull up/dips/core stuff). Besides that I'm not sure what else I should be doing besides getting in better shape and studying up on 10's/18's.
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Apr 18, 2016 00:56
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Bring 2x as many socks as you think you need. Drink more water. No seriously, you're not drinking enough water. Your boots aren't broken in. Keep an MRE in your pack. Ask for the vegetarian lunches. (I'm not joking) If given the choice between chow, sleep and shower, opt for sleep. What region are you working in? I worked for an R6 Type II crew last summer let me know if you have any specific questions.
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Apr 18, 2016 05:40
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Hello fellow FF goons! I'm still green (just coming up on my 1st year) and finally decided to go look for a firefighting thread on the forums. The reason being: We had our yearly Heavy Rescue training here in Ohio over the weekend. One of the instructors showed me a really great video on youtube, and now I can't find it for the life of me. The instructor in the video was very reminiscent of a Drill Instructor. He tells the trainees that "When someone calls 911, they get you. You show up. There is no 1011, you don't call anyone, you have to figure it out". The video is about having to figure things out on a scene, and using your training and knowledge to get things done when you may not have encountered them before. Then he asks if they have ever seen an alien riding a unicorn, to which they reply "no". He goes on and says something like "One day, someone is going to see an alien riding a unicorn. And they are gonna call 911, and that's YOU. There is no 1011, so you have to figure out what to do with an alien riding a unicorn!" If anyone knows what I'm talking about or has a link to the video, I'd appreciate it. Edit: Someone on Reddit found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deVwMW7QfGY Manxome Foe fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Apr 19, 2016 |
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Apr 18, 2016 21:11
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If they are seeing an alien riding a unicorn, their LSD just kicked in!
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Apr 20, 2016 03:38
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If any of you guys get called out and there IS an alien riding a unicorn, please call your local newspaper. 
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Apr 25, 2016 19:20
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Bad Angus! Bad!
25 lighters posted:About to start my first season as a wild land firefighter on a type II handcrew. Anyone got any pointers or things you wish someone told you before you started your first season? I don't really know what to expect besides a lot of hiking, training, cutting/digging stuff. whites are a good choice. studying your 10 & 18s is also a good choice. running is good too, although i would say hiking is probably more important. do you hike with weight? if not, you should probably start. don't do exclusively bodyweight exercises, weight training is important too. it takes strength to haul trees out of the way and poo poo. pushups are useless except for PT tests, focus on core & leg strength. alot of this depends on when your season starts though, i'm guessing probably pretty soon? don't blow yourself out right before the season, you need to give yourself a nice gap between the height of your training program's intensity and the start of the season, maybe 1-2 weeks. whatever you do, DON'T run more than a couple miles or do any insane hikes in the week right before the start of the season, you'll blow yourself out. if you still have some time, get used to hiking with weight. work your way up to hauling 50+ pounds over 20+ miles, giving yourself a day or so of rest inbetween hike days (start low & slow). use this as an opportunity to break your boots in further; grease those fuckers after every hike (don't grease em dirty; if they get all dirty, dunk them in a bathtub or a stream for a couple hours then let them dry while you wear them, then take em off and grease them). DON'T push yourself too hard too fast or you will get hosed up. drink tons and tons of water. overall your first season will be a ton of fun. mind your p's-&-q's, say something if you see something, work hard, and grease your boots after every roll. you'll have a great time 
black children fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Apr 25, 2016 |
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Apr 25, 2016 22:49
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25 lighters posted:About to start my first season as a wild land firefighter on a type II handcrew. Anyone got any pointers or things you wish someone told you before you started your first season? I don't really know what to expect besides a lot of hiking, training, cutting/digging stuff. Remember to bring baby wipes to the campaign fires. Every evening I'd wipe down my face, hands, feet, sack and crack. Kept me fresh all 14 days. #19 on your 10's & 18's should be watch out for poison oak. poo poo sucks.
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Apr 27, 2016 02:18
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I submit #19 to the Watchout's as Incompetent Overhead. Let's burn out this slope while there's crew working above. Let's light this off while we're under red flag for high winds (25kt+) and 5% RH, 2 pm sound good? Grab your torches boys! gently caress you CalFire  You can take #20 and #21 is bees. gently caress ground nesting bees. SeaborneClink fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Apr 27, 2016 |
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Apr 27, 2016 02:36
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Yea I have been hiking with weight... bought a normal hiking pack and it ripped with barely 40lbs in it... Now i'm using my old army one and it does the job. Season starts in about a month. Boots are feelin great, will definitely start greasin them after every hike. Will stock up on baby wipes, that one's a given. SeaborneClink posted:gently caress you CalFire Thanks for the bro tips, avoid bee's in loving ground and poison oak.
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Apr 27, 2016 05:19
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In addition to baby wipes, get desitin or some other brand rash cream. Some guys swear by petroleum jelly.
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Apr 28, 2016 07:08
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Hook up to the autosprinkler? Let me get my universal key.
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May 2, 2016 18:35
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The favorite part of the job of every firefighter I've known is the complete and unquestioned ability to just break poo poo as necessary to get their job done.
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May 4, 2016 04:10
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Mr. Nice! posted:The favorite part of the job of every firefighter I've known is the complete and unquestioned ability to just break poo poo as necessary to get their job done. this is a true fact. the gubbmint pays me beaucoup hpay to gently caress up huge tracts of woodland for basically no reason 
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May 4, 2016 20:31
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firehose through car window is still one of the best. Spring loaded center punches are awesome.
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May 4, 2016 20:42
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bunch of jobs to soon be opening up in Hartford CT http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-fire-department-retirement-surge-0511-20160510-story.html
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May 12, 2016 05:52
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2nd shift today. My supervisor instated mandatory training (1h) for 1st and 2nd shifts on weekends. We get to pick the training topic, so pump operations it is.
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May 14, 2016 21:58
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Every year our final training is listed as a "Hydraulics Lecture" which we run with our neighboring departments. It consists of hands on activities related to hydraulics, involving small 12 or 16 oz containers. Raising them up, emptying them, and then refilling them. I suggest selling that as a good drill for your next mandatory training.
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May 16, 2016 05:27
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:bunch of jobs to soon be opening up in Hartford CT I don't think that mayor really understands what is going to happen if he forces that department from a 42 hour to a 56 hour work week. FLSA will kick in and with a possible 1/3rd reduction due to retirement or people burning their sick/vacation, overtime expenses would rise dramatically.
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May 16, 2016 18:05
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Our local airpack vendor stopped by today with a demo unit of a mask mounted thermal imaging camera. The camera was mounted at eye level on the side of the mask. It linked via bluetooth to a small screen inside the mask which was right on the nose cone. Forward vision wasn't obstructed at all, you just had to look down to see the display. Wasn't heavy at all either. A little pricey though, $1500 per mask. You also start to look more like a robot than a firefighter with the camera and a voice amplifier on at the same time. Pretty neat!
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May 17, 2016 13:53
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IronDoge posted:You also start to look more like a robot than a firefighter with the camera and a voice amplifier on at the same time. Pretty neat! This sounds interesting. How large of a field of vision did the camera have? I can only imagine it's less than a handheld TIC. Also wonder how much more terrifying I can be to children with my mask on. Still, wouldn't mind a chance to play with one. e: what air pack supplier? Scott or MSA? HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 17:14 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 17, 2016 14:06
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Manufacturer is Scott. Field of vision was narrower than what'd you'd get from a handheld, but serviceable still. Found an article with a video on it. http://www.firefighternation.com/videos/missouri-firefighters-using-new-mask-thermal-imager That'll probably give you a better idea of how it looks. It'd be cool to see where this ends up a couple years down the line. A slimline version of this would be awesome.
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May 17, 2016 17:31
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Holy crap, that looks incredible. Did adding weight to only one side of the head noticeably affect the fit or comfort of the mask? I'm not even sure how to estimate how much it might weigh, but it looks bulky enough to potentially be a factor.
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May 17, 2016 18:14
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For me and several other people in the department, we didn't have any noticeable sagging on the side it was mounted on. It's pretty lightweight.
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May 17, 2016 18:24
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I will not be seeing that anytime soon, we just got new handheld tics for every company. One of our local councilmembers has a hard on for not funding our current years wildland fire overtime expenses and is talking about going from 5 man to 4 man engine/ladder companies.
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May 17, 2016 22:46
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Question for you guys--I recently applied for a job at a nearby county department. After seeing that they offered preference points for county residents in the rankings, I applied using my mother's address instead of my own as she lives in the county. Is this something that will come back to bite me in the rear end? There's still another ~month to go before the test is scheduled to take place so if the consensus is yes I can correct it without a problem. I did live with my mother briefly a bit over a year ago while in the process of moving states and might do the same thing briefly again if I get hired, but mainly I wanted to maximize my odds. I had a recent experience with another nearby department where I was unable to claim the residency preference and I basically wrote my chances off after I got my ranking back--mid 2000s out of around 3500 despite acing the test, on a list that lasts two years. Also this is technically irrelevant to the issue but I did live within the county for ~20 years until my aforementioned move.
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May 18, 2016 18:06
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IronDoge posted:Our local airpack vendor stopped by today with a demo unit of a mask mounted thermal imaging camera. The camera was mounted at eye level on the side of the mask. It linked via bluetooth to a small screen inside the mask which was right on the nose cone. Forward vision wasn't obstructed at all, you just had to look down to see the display. Wasn't heavy at all either. A little pricey though, $1500 per mask. You also start to look more like a robot than a firefighter with the camera and a voice amplifier on at the same time. Pretty neat! That's funny, because we just got to play with them. Will likely be getting them as we are getting new masks ($500 apiece) and the three helmet mounted TICs on each apparatus are nearing replacement and are still $10k apiece. Yeah, I work for a rich suburb.
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May 20, 2016 02:44
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HiroProtagonist posted:Question for you guys--I recently applied for a job at a nearby county department. After seeing that they offered preference points for county residents in the rankings, I applied using my mother's address instead of my own as she lives in the county. It really depends on how they verify your residency. That's not a thing around here so I'm not familiar with it.
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May 20, 2016 02:46
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IronDoge posted:Our local airpack vendor stopped by today with a demo unit of a mask mounted thermal imaging camera. The camera was mounted at eye level on the side of the mask. It linked via bluetooth to a small screen inside the mask which was right on the nose cone. Forward vision wasn't obstructed at all, you just had to look down to see the display. Wasn't heavy at all either. A little pricey though, $1500 per mask. You also start to look more like a robot than a firefighter with the camera and a voice amplifier on at the same time. Pretty neat! black children fucked around with this message at 23:29 on May 21, 2016 |
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May 21, 2016 23:24
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Mr. Nice! posted:firehose through car window is still one of the best. Spring loaded center punches are awesome. You don't use the small end of the fireaxe? I'm a little disappointed. OTOH, go get the heavy-rear end axe off the truck and swing it vs. a pen-sized tool in your pocket, makes sense. And nowadays the axe on the truck is just a regular axe, the Halligan does all the prying jobs. As for photos, my personal archive is a bit lacking (i.e., I've posted everything I have at home and then some already)due to dead/currently-incompatible (I can't find the IDE external HDD box) HDDs over the last 15 years, and the online newspaper archive has javascript bullshit preventing copy-pasting that I'm to lazy to circumvent (basically, I'd have to screencap every low-res image). But you guys are cool and won't dox me if I link to the smugmug page that has my real name and title of the newspaper in the tags, right? Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 22:48 on May 22, 2016 |
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May 22, 2016 22:33
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I'm not a firefighter myself. My second job ever was working as a mover for a firefighter that ran a moving business on his days off. He showed us how effective one of those center punches was on tempered glass. Does fuckall to laminated glass though.
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May 22, 2016 23:26
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Mr. Nice! posted:I'm not a firefighter myself. My second job ever was working as a mover for a firefighter that ran a moving business on his days off. He showed us how effective one of those center punches was on tempered glass. Does fuckall to laminated glass though. What I learned as a firefighter is how pretty much all security measures are just for show, the only thing really slowing you down from getting access to anything is how motivated you are.
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May 23, 2016 05:17
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black children posted:i've seen those things in action before, in my experience they don't really work. i saw 3 firefighters wearing these walk right over a smoking spot that the guy after them (wearing nothing but a hardhat) spotted. it was buried under a log but clearly hot - started throwing sparks as soon as the log was lifted. i'm not saying there's no legitimacy to these tools, or that they won't be useful in the future or even a helpful tool in present engagements- however, at present, especially without sound tactics behind them, they're unreliable at best You have direct experience with a brand new piece of equipment that was revealed at a trade show less than a month ago? Pretty sure there aren't any of these even in the field yet.
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May 23, 2016 19:40
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Delivery McGee posted:You don't use the small end of the fireaxe? I'm a little disappointed. OTOH, go get the heavy-rear end axe off the truck and swing it vs. a pen-sized tool in your pocket, makes sense. And nowadays the axe on the truck is just a regular axe, the Halligan does all the prying jobs. On tempered glass the center punch takes zero effort or force, and controlling the shattering is good. For laminated glass a saw is quicker, safer and easier than trying to bash it in, especially considering if you need to it means there's probably a victim in there under it that needs to be extricated. The pick end of the fireaxe is more for tradition than anything, I think. When I was in fire school someone said it used to be used mostly for vent jobs like pulling shingles and tiles off the roof (rather than prying), but in any case I can't think of something you'd pick a fireaxe to do instead of a tool that is either better at its job (chainsaw, pike pole/roof hook) or more multipurpose (halligan, flathead). Unlike the flathead it's sharp, but if you need something cut there's always a more effective and useful option. Actually can anyone name something the fireaxe is better at than any other tool? Now that I've thought about it I'm curious. Crazy Dutchman posted:You have direct experience with a brand new piece of equipment that was revealed at a trade show less than a month ago? Pretty sure there aren't any of these even in the field yet. Not sure, but I think he was talking about regular TICs and being over-reliant on them in general. e: derped and reversed glass types HiroProtagonist fucked around with this message at 20:59 on May 23, 2016 |
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May 23, 2016 20:48
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HiroProtagonist posted:Actually can anyone name something the fireaxe is better at than any other tool? Now that I've thought about it I'm curious. Looking good on the side of a Mack CF.
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May 23, 2016 21:00
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HiroProtagonist posted:
TICs are a fantastic tool and every firefighter should know how to use one.
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May 23, 2016 21:18
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Thermal cameras are loving cool as poo poo and we got to use them when doing firefighting training on the ship.
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May 23, 2016 21:22
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EMT for a 3rd party service quartered in a fire station. The engine guys made me bake cookies and I got to use the TIC to see how hot the oven was. 
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May 23, 2016 23:53
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HiroProtagonist posted:On tempered glass the center punch takes zero effort or force, and controlling the shattering is good. For laminated glass a saw is quicker, safer and easier than trying to bash it in, especially considering if you need to it means there's probably a victim in there under it that needs to be extricated. We have one honorary axe with that short pick on the other end on our truck. It sucks using it to break auto glass, you have to really put some force into the hit. For cutting plywood roofs or walls, we will start with the axe side then flip to the flat side to crush our way through. One of our guys got some new fancy flathead haligan combo tool called the "pig". I believe he said it cost around $300. You can gis it here (phone posting): https://www.google.com/search?q=the...ike+firefighter We just grab our haligan and flathead axe for any forceable entry. Our department wide tic training is designed for the officer to use to direct the nozzle guy to the seat if the fire faster. It comes with a replaceable retracting cord and the tic itself is much smaller than our older model. At higher heat readings, it goes into a colored heat mode which really makes the fire standout. We also just got these ~6" aluminum disk things which fit over a 2 1/2 hose for pushing or pulling. Lots of new or updated equipment. Finally got salvage covers again, it's been several years since we last had use able ones. Finally, we got these new 14" rotary blades to replace our old multipurpose 12" blade. We tried it on auto pillars and it cuts through regular metal like butter. Much faster than using spreaders/cutters, although it may not be suitable if we can't shield victims in the car.
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May 24, 2016 08:38
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