just wanted to see what was new in yalls fire department, here in clemson we have been slammed with brush fire after brush fire, today we had a 5 acre burn with flames 15 feet high... it was awsome!! also are yall going to the southeastern fire school in march?? its in columbia. have you started your 1152 interior burn class yet? keep us informed. also how close are you to levonia? we pick them up on our radio freq. seems like they have been slammed lately too

 

BTT

 

Hey man!

Things are going really well. We have had a couple of really good burns recently. Our county is fortunate enough to have a local developer donate houses to us left and right. He'll buy up a butt-load of land to ldo evel and build a new subdivision. The majority of the land will have houses on it already, and before his crew comes in and tears them down, he lets us come in and do whatever we want with them. We can do a lot with just one house. We don't just throw a match and let the **** burn to the ground. We got 18 fires out of a single two story house over about a month in January. We have 10 more just on this one stretch of land. Most of them still have furniture in them, so we get some pretty cool search and rescue exercises in. We can ventilate when/where/how we want to, and then board them back up and it's like we were never there. We did one yesterday and the whole first floor burned in about 10 minutes. The walls were coated in some kind of lacquer, so it all burned off. It was awesome, and we can still burn more since it burned so fast.

This is just my 3rd week, and there are 11 in my recruit class. We started doing live burns last Thursday. We started small with dumpster fires, barrels of diesel, an old burned out work van that we stuff with pallets and burn, etc. Since this is all new to me, I am loving it.

We have a pretty cool two story burn building for 'controlled' fires. It's solid steel and it gets hot...DAMN HOT. It's not that bad until your SCBA starts to heat up and the air gets almost too hot to breathe...that's something they really can't mentally prepare you for.

I'll try to get some pix of our training facility. Within a year and a half, this place is going to be all brand new and state of the art. I can't wait.

My territory is about 75 miles from Lavonia as the crow flies, but it'd take about 2.5 hours to drive there.

Our training Captain is gung-ho Wildland Fire. We have a nice little National Forest in our county that allows us to do burns...that'll be in a couple weeks. They have video of fires we've started, and natural fires that we've fought. Our fire wall there is about the same as yours...15-30 feet high, but only 5-8 feet deep, so if worse comes to worse, you can run right through it and find safety in the burned area. Sounds like a lot of raking to me.

I won't be making the fire school in March...we don't graduate until April 1st...hopefully this April Fool's Day Graduation won't be another chapter in the life of Tuff.

 

How much did you pay for that Whelen Light Bar?

 

sounds like everything is going good, i sure do wish we had some houses like that we could burn it would be great training. i got my lightbar from www.emergencylightsales.com i think it was around 200.00 its pricey but well worth the money, this thing is bright! and you can put it right above your rearview mirror. ive been on the fire department here for about 3 months and i still have the fire bug i just cant get enough of it, we had two house fires yesterday and 1 brush fire today. i just cant waite untill i get this 1152 class over with so i can go in with an SCBA thats when the real fun begins. well time to go do some studying so i can pass this damn written test they give you. if you need any help on your 1152 let me know ive just about got it memorized! take it easy, be safe

 

We had HAZMAT all day today. Interesting, but WAAAAY too much class time. ALL DAY LONG. Tomorrow should be better.

 

Our diesel burns are very few, and VERY far between. It's diluted like hell, and takes forever to catch. We sit there for a few minutes with a torch held to the tub of diesel and water. It's about 1 gallon of diesel for every 10 gallons of water. It burned for a total of 10 minutes while we used extinguishers. We used to use diesel on EVERYTHING, but the EPA shut us down...and probably should.

The van is actually just the remaining shell of an actual van fire we had about two years ago. It's nothing but a rust bucket. The only thing that really burns is the pallets...it never gets hot enough to burn the actual steel of the van.

Seriously though, we have to train. Give a little to save a lot if you're concerned about the environment. Can't just expect us to show up to your house fully involved in flames with a hose and no idea how to use it, right? Or expect us to come into a smoke filled house that is 1000+ degrees and drag you and your loved ones out because you are unconcious without ever having been in that situation ourselves, right?

Ah hell, you understand.

 

carz3d, are you being seriouse i cant tell, i will assume you are. this is my input, when your house burns or someone in you family's house burns wouldnt you want the people who are going in the house to save your loved ones be trained in there field the best way possible?? well the best way for us to train is to recreate that situation as close to possible. its not so much the flames and putting them out as it is dealing with the smoke and low visability in a house.

 

shut up. Go to your SUV threads...

 

haha i was thinking the same thing

 

Hey, I think the propane house is a good idea. I also think that cops should learn how to shoot by playing video games so that we can keep some of the lead out of the environment. And doctors should train by playing the board game "operation" instead of wasting cadavers.

Anyway, Tuff and HHIFX4, thanks for your service, train hard, and above all, STAY SAFE!

Craz3d, no offense intended with my post (everyone on this board has a right to their opinion) I just thought it was a very odd suggestion.

 

Any house out on the island I would give you for training. Personally, I have no use for the island itself. I spent way to much time down there trying to solve y'alls traffic problems....

I met several of the people that work at the Spanish Wells Road station but that was back around 96/97. I see where you are new. FT or Volunteer?

I have 10 years with Lex. Co. but gave it up when my 2nd child was born. Between f/f and p/t EMS for the last 3 years, I was burned out. To much training!

Did you ever get to use the old fire academy at the Columbia Airport? That was a fun place to do all the '11' classes at. I did mine over the summer months. Not much fun in August. let me tell you....

Take care and be safe!

 

didnt get to use the old academy but im going to the new one on march 13 for incident command and RIT. im trying to get as much training as i can with my vol. department so i can go somewhere and work fulltime, maybe out west or something. as for hilton head, i can barely go down there to visit anymore without getting run over by people who dont know how to drive. i dont think the traffic problem will ever go away there

 

Actually, that is not to far from what our soldiers use to train with...granted, they use live-fire exercises, but simulation is a big part of it, too.

http://www.peostri.army.mil