Month: January 2009

I was hoping to have a reasonably relaxed Drill night last night but the feeling in my water told me otherwise.

A vacancy has arisen at Normanshurst for a Leading Firefighter with the retained section. And last night was the chance for the four candidates to strut their stuff.

By the time we arrived they were well into their 10 minute lectures on a piece of equipment of their choice.

This is where the feeling in my water comes in…

Some how I got 'volunteered' to be part of the five man (or is it person) drill crew. Seems like it was a good idea not stuffing my face with bangers and mash before going to the fire station!

One by one the candidates appeared in the drill yard to take charge of a drill. Each drill had a maximum running time of 10 minutes including the briefing, the drill, the make up and the debrief. So, with this time constraint, none of the drills were too exacting.

The drills are run in a similar fashion to the recruits course – 'fall in three paces behind and facing Normanshurt 02'. You get your safety brief and then are detailed with the drill.

First drill was for two of the crew (myself and Greg) to make our way to the second floor via the internal vertical ladder and then haul aloft a short length of 45. Meanwhile the dry riser was being charged from Ladder two, supplemented by the hydrant. As soon as we had water spraying across the drill yard it was 'knock off and make up'.

The second drill involved the 9m ladder, again into the second floor. This time it was the hosereel carried aloft (by me) and got to work from within the drill tower.

Thirdly is was a simple pumping drill – hosereel got to work supplied solely from the tank of Ladder 2.

And finally we had to set up all the lighting – stem light and scene lights on Ladder 2, generator and two lighting clusters lighting the east face of the drill tower. This was followed by slipping and pitching the 9m ladder into the second floor of the drill tower.

So nothing too hectic but we wanted to ensure that we gave all the candidates the best we could. The spotlight wasn't on us, so anything we could do to make things go smoothly would make the ordeal all that much easier for the four hopefuls.

And that was us finished. While the interviews started, we had a quick brew before finishing off the weekly tests on Ladder 2.

I don't know as yet who was successful. I'm doing some Learn & Live presentations today so may get to hear when I'm over at the station. Can't reveal who my money was on – but then all we witnessed was the drill section of the whole process…

Not sure if 'gaggle' is the correct collective noun to describe a group or gathering of fire engines. All I could find on the Internet was a forum where some ladies had posted their collective nouns for various sized groups of firefighters. These ranged from a 'moist of firefighters' for the equivalent of one crew, a 'damp of firefighters' for two crews and lastly a 'drippingly wet of firefighters' when more than 20 firefighters were spotted in one place!

Hmm… Think I'll just settle on a gaggle of fire engines for this post.

Last night was our drill night and arranged before us was a veritable bevvy of brand-spanking new fire engines – well three of them to be precise.

For the retained firefighters at Normanshurst this was our chance to look over the new appliances and for the drivers to take them out for a run.

These three appliances will all be used as Pump Rescue Tenders (PRT's) in other parts of Suffolk. Normanshurst is due to get the same truck but with different equipment as an ERT (Enhanced Rescue Tender). There is a rumour that to fall in line with the new 4 letter acronyms being used by Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service (e.g. CARP – Combined Aerial Rescue Pump) the ERT needs an extra letter. As these appliances are still used as fire engines then it would be fitting to add the letter P ('I'll have a P please Bob!'). Therefore the new ERT's will be known as Pump, Enhanced Rescue Tender or PERT. Then we can all describe it as a 'PERT little fire engine'!

Five of us drivers piled into one of the pumps for a guided tour of the 'flight deck'. There are controls everywhere. You got central locking on the doors and lockers, a computer that displays everything under the Sun to you, lights, strobe bars, red rear strobes and a set of sirens that can probably be heard in the next county!

The driver can control the siren form either the traditional foot switch, a button on the end of the indicator stalk or the two road horn buttons situated on the steering wheel. If these don't attract the attention of other road users there's always the bull horn. If that doesn't do the trick we have a PA at our disposal – 'Oi, dickhead. Didn't you hear the sirens, see the lights and wonder why all the traffic parted like the parting of The Red Sea – move over!!'. And, failing all that, just resort to the good old normal road horn…

I went off for a drive, with Fred (one of the brigades driving instructors) in the OIC seat. I was hoping that Fred wasn't going to treat me to his usual tirade of 'F**k this, f**k that, for f**ks sake', etc. And, thankfully, we had a good drive over to Gorleston and back, some at speed and on blues and two's (not quite right now as it isn't the usual neenah anymore…).

These new pumps have got a top speed of around 72mph, which is slower than our dear old Ladder 2. This M reg pump can make it up to around 85mph on a good day. But what the new pumps lack in top end speed they more than make up for in grunt. They certainly get a good head of speed up from a standing start and you're over 40mph before you know it.

And to round the evening off we had a tour of the lockers, equipment stowage, tried the hosereels (now high up in the middle lockers) and all had a go at getting the fire engines to sit down at the rear or to kneel up – all done from a little remote control in the pump bay.

Not a bad drill night, if I say so myself. It's boys and their toys I suppose…

It was Drill Night last night and, for once, we spent most of the evening outside in the drill yard.

We were to be assessed on our RTC skills by two of our resident RTCI’s – Ian Pettitt and Gary Smart.

I was driving the PRT and we were first in to the single vehicle RTC with Ladder 2 following close behind. Pete Brown was our OIC so his every move and decision was under the spotlight.

The RTC was a simulation of a car going under the rear of an HGV. The car, with two casualties, was also towing a trailer. The car was being driven by Rachael ‘Princess’ O’Connell (I’ll not make any cheap jokes about female drivers…) and her front seat passenger was Al ‘I didn’t touch it’ Soards. Knowing how Al can break anything, he should really have been in the driving seat…

So casualty care was started, stabilisation, glass and plastics management too. At the same time an equipment dump was made of all the gear we would need to extricate our two casualties. And with it being a dark and dank night we needed to supplement the PRT’s stem light and scene lights with our fluorescent lights.

Steady progress was made through removing the glass, cutting all the posts, removing the roof and eventually getting Rachael and Al out on longboards.

Overall the assessment was very good, a few learning points for everyone and just the make-up to do in double-quick time. It always amazes me how quickly a mountain of equipment can be cleaned, dried and stowed when there are plenty of hands about (and when the clock is advancing to 9pm!).