ARFF, ARFF, ARFF!!!
Ok, I was going for a dog barking effect on the title there. A little weak, but what do you expect from me at this point.
ARFF, for those of you that don’t know what that stands for is Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting. It is very much like structural firefighting, just with more flammable liquids and inside a tuna can. Plus we get much more stylish turnouts than structural firefighters.
So here at Salt Lake City ARFF training center we have a full programmable propane aircraft crash simulator. This means that an instructor in the tower can start any fire at any time on the simulator. They can have ground fires all around the aircraft, engine fires, landing gear fires, cabin fires in multiple locations, under cabin fires, and smoke throughout the cabin area. All of this means basically that once you have extinguished a fire in one area and moved on, the instructor can, and most often will restart the fire after you have passed, or start another fire behind you. Thus you are now trapped in said tuna can and you now have to fight your way out.
They have two very new Oshkosh Stryker 3000 ARFF trucks. Imagine a six wheel drive, fully independent suspension, four wheel steering tanker with 3000 gallons of water, class B foam, 600 pounds of dry chemical agent, and a really cool front bumper turret.
So I arrived to SLC on Sunday night and class began on Monday morning at 8:30. We had a 20 minute safety lecture, an hour of gear fitting, and by 10AM on Monday morning I was driving and operating the turret on live fire with Crash 8. What a way to start a 10 day class!!!!
Since then we have been doing interior firefighting and search and rescue as well as exterior firefighting with dual agent and foam. Dual agent is dry chemical and water or foam mixed. The nozzle has a straight tip in the center for the dry chemical to exit and the water is a fog nozzle surrounding the center straight tip. The purpose for the dual agent application is for the reach of the water stream with the knock down of the dry chemical.
And for almost all of the remaining days we will be doing actual scenarios with interior and exterior operations. And so I will be acting in my capacity as a Lieutenant for the remainder of the time. This means that I will be a crew leader and likely I will be Incident Commander for an evolution or two.
That is all for now. I have to go to dinner with the two Captains and the two other Lieutenants now.
Don’t I get any credit for spelling Lieutenant correctly without even using spell check???
R.J.
ARFF, for those of you that don’t know what that stands for is Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting. It is very much like structural firefighting, just with more flammable liquids and inside a tuna can. Plus we get much more stylish turnouts than structural firefighters.
So here at Salt Lake City ARFF training center we have a full programmable propane aircraft crash simulator. This means that an instructor in the tower can start any fire at any time on the simulator. They can have ground fires all around the aircraft, engine fires, landing gear fires, cabin fires in multiple locations, under cabin fires, and smoke throughout the cabin area. All of this means basically that once you have extinguished a fire in one area and moved on, the instructor can, and most often will restart the fire after you have passed, or start another fire behind you. Thus you are now trapped in said tuna can and you now have to fight your way out.
They have two very new Oshkosh Stryker 3000 ARFF trucks. Imagine a six wheel drive, fully independent suspension, four wheel steering tanker with 3000 gallons of water, class B foam, 600 pounds of dry chemical agent, and a really cool front bumper turret.
So I arrived to SLC on Sunday night and class began on Monday morning at 8:30. We had a 20 minute safety lecture, an hour of gear fitting, and by 10AM on Monday morning I was driving and operating the turret on live fire with Crash 8. What a way to start a 10 day class!!!!
Since then we have been doing interior firefighting and search and rescue as well as exterior firefighting with dual agent and foam. Dual agent is dry chemical and water or foam mixed. The nozzle has a straight tip in the center for the dry chemical to exit and the water is a fog nozzle surrounding the center straight tip. The purpose for the dual agent application is for the reach of the water stream with the knock down of the dry chemical.
And for almost all of the remaining days we will be doing actual scenarios with interior and exterior operations. And so I will be acting in my capacity as a Lieutenant for the remainder of the time. This means that I will be a crew leader and likely I will be Incident Commander for an evolution or two.
That is all for now. I have to go to dinner with the two Captains and the two other Lieutenants now.
Don’t I get any credit for spelling Lieutenant correctly without even using spell check???
R.J.
posted by R.J. at 7:05 PM
4 Comments:
Great photos! And of course I
have to add my standard line
to you "BE CAREFUL"
Most excellent blog. Please make sure you get the "Train the Trainer" version of ARFF so we can try that... a... wadaya call it? Oh yeah the fire inside the tuna can. You probably heard, but since you are in firematic mode #5 is back. We played with it tonight.
Hi Aunt Paula and Uncle RJ!
Just wanted to say hi. Hope things are going well for you.
Everything is pretty good here. Nothing too exciting, except that my brother Pat got his permit - not sure if that is exciting or terrifying for my parents though.
ENJOY!
Hey guys! Glad to see you are having fun. And congrats on becoming "homeless" in your alotted timeframe.
Our goal is to be "1 home less" by the end of the summer. Otherwisw, all is well here. I'll hollar atcha later.
C-ya!
B
Post a Comment
<< Home