Fire Training Begins

Saturday marked the first day of Firefighter I certification training; a nine-hour day composed of about half classroom work, half field exercise. Most of the classwork revolved around organization, accountability (keeping track of firefighters at a scene), and safety. The second half of the day was spent putting on and taking off full turnout and SCBA gear, over and over and over.

Couple things: First, it was overcast and cool, but the turnout gear is still incredibly hot. My t-shirt was soaked - no, really soaked - with sweat by the end of the four hours. Glad it's not summer any more.

Second, the SCBA pack weighs about 35 or 40 pounds. It's bad enough to be picking it up and strapping it on, then taking it off and putting back on the ground, but the fastest way to don the pack is to lift it directly over your head with your arms half-way in the straps, and then drop it behind you and let it fall onto your back while your arms slip neatly into the straps. (Or, as was often my case, your arms slip mostly into the straps, and the waist belt gets tangled and caught on the frame or one of the shoulder straps, and the pressure gauge gets hung up under a strap or the PASS alarm catches on something...) Point is, lifting a 40-pound air pack over your head over and over and over, makes for sore muscles if you're not used to it. And have I mentioned I'm not used to it?

Lastly, the dang mask really seemed too small for me, and I had a hard time getting a good skin/mask seal which meant constant fiddling with it to get a tight seal before I could pull my hood and get my helmet fastened, and my gloves are definitely too small, which means they were very slow to put on.

Why the whole issue about being quick? Obviously when you get toned out you need to get dressed quickly. But my immediate concern is the State certification test, which requires you to go from street clothes to full turnouts (boots, pants, coat, hood, helmet, gloves) and SCBA, with your PASS alarm set and breathing air... in under 2 minutes.

By the end of the day, I hit 1:56, but my protective hood wasn't seated 100% over the mask. No skin was showing - that's a definite don't - but the hood was pulled down maybe 1/2 inch across the top of the viewplate in the mask in what our Captain called a "nice pirate impersonation." Argh, matey.

We've got plenty of time to practice it, and I suspect I'll streamline the process as we go. Getting larger gloves would be a help, as would not getting straps, hoses, gauges, and the like tangled up every time I drop the thing on my back. I'll try to get a picture up one of these days, or for the high-speed internet crowd out there, maybe even a short (under 2 minute!) video clip if I can talk one of my classmates into being the photographer.

Meantime, here's hoping the sore muscles are gone before next class on Tuesday...