Citizen's Academy-Week 4...final week with the Fire Department.

Last night was our last night with the Fire Department. It was a ton of fun, if not a little chaotic. Class was only slightly delayed by the fact that half the guys were out on a call (which ended up being a false alarm). Once we brought all of our turnout gear down from storage, we met in the classroom to go over Incident Management and what our assignments would be for the night. We were going to be simulating a call to a scene in which both fire and EMS would be involved. Each different "role" was assigned to an actual firefighter so that we could learn more about what each person might do on a fire scene.

So, we got dispatched out of the fire station by the actual dispatcher, geared up, and jumped (or something resembling that) into our respective fire apparatus (which is firefighter speak for a fire truck). Once on the scene we broke into our repsective roles and began the scenario. The scenario involved a vehicle that crashed into the side of a building, striking the electric and gas meters and causing a fire to the structure. There were also injuries involved and reports of a person trapped inside the building.

Let me tell you a couple of the things that I leared that were pretty eye-opening:

• Our city's fire department only employs 16 total firefighters.
• Only 4 of them are on duty at any one time during the day/night.
• A minimum of 2 at a time usually go out on ambulance calls, but sometimes they need 3.
• A fire scene needs an Incident Commander (or Officer in Charge), a Safety Officer, and a team of firefighters to fight the fire. That's 4 people.
• Each attack team must have a team to back them up in case something happens (NFPA's 2 in 2 out rule). If there are only 4 people on duty and 2 of them are the attack team, do the math and consider how dangerous this is.

Even with my Dad being a firefighter for 25+ years I had no idea that things were like this. Luckily, our city's department has a good working relationship with the surrounding communities and they have a great mutual aid agreement worked out. The other departments are able to send guys and apparatus to cover our department when we are short. It also helps that our department pages out off-duty and paid-on-call firefighters and EMS personnel when needed. But economic times are tough and budget cuts are still coming down the pipeline. I just hope that it doesn't start jeopardizing people's safety.

Once we finished up at the scene, we packed the trucks back up and headed for the "barn." We unloaded all the hose to dry and washed the trucks. No sooner had we washed the trucks, however, then a call came across the radio. There was another fire...an actual one this time. It was neat, though, because we all happened to be on the apparatus floor when the guys suited up and jumped into the truck. It was really nat to see the guys in action. I actually passed that fire scene on my way home from class!!

Next week we will be going to visit with the Electric Department. I hope it's more exciting than the wastewater treatment plant!