Live Fire Training with the FOOLS

So, while most people are spending the Saturday before Christmas doing last minute shopping and baking their holiday treats, a select group of individuals is training as thier lives depend on it.

I should give you some background - The Fraternal Order of Leatherheads Society (F.O.O.L.S.)is a social/training group made up of guys and girls that simply put love firefighting and training. A few months ago, I recieved a phone call from one of my lieutenants at work that they were putting together a local chapter of FOOLS and they invited me to become one of the charter members. This was a huge honor for me for two reasons - 1) I haven't really been a firefighter for very long (4 years) and some of these guys have 2, 3 even 4 times as much time in as me, and 2) turns out, I'm the only female that was invited.

Back to today, I headed down to Ocala to the Florida State Fire College for live fire training. There were about 20 guys out there, 6 instructors and 14 firefighters. We started the day out with a quick walk through of the Konex box that we were going to be training in. The Konex box is pretty much a tractor trailer without the wheels on it. One corner of the box is where the fire is. It looks like a huge fireplace and there are about a hundred pallets stacked out back that they use to stoke the fire.

Our first evolution was to go in as groups of 4 - 2 two man teams - each on a different hose line. One hose line had a fog nozzle, which is similar to what you might have on your garden hose, only on a much larger scale. The other line had a smooth bore nozzle, which has a hole smaller than the end of the hose and it compresses the water as it leaves the orifice, thus making it faster and go farther. Both of these nozzles are used in fire fighting, but there is a huge debate about which one is better and we got the chance to see for ourselves what each line could do. I could go into a huge discussion about thermal layering and such, but I won't bore you. I would have to vote for the smooth bore nozzle.

We got to take in Thermal Imaging Cameras (TICs) to the hot box with us. When that fire was cooking and before we started messing up the thermal layering with water it was 600 degrees in the box with us!!!! It was HOT! It was cool to see how the layers of smoke and gases bank down from the ceiling and what they look like as they get heated up.

Our second scenario had two of us going in, find a victim, call for the rescue team and then head to the fire to put it out. I was on the rescue team first and me and Jeff got the guy out pretty quick. I fumbled with my rescue rope for a second or two, but that is why we train. Then we switched and we got to go on the hose line and the other two executed the rescue.

After lunch our last scenario involved breaching a wall and doing a "low profile" crawl. If you can imagine studs in the wall of your home are usually 16" apart. There are times when we might have to bust the wall to get out. Well, we have to fit ourselves, and possible victims, through that 16" clearance. The way to do that with all of your gear, including your air pack, is to sit with your back to the wall and let the air pack go through the hole, then move your arms like you are doing the backstroke through the hole, then you just slide right through.

We had a crew on the hose line and my crew went in, cleared the wall, rescued the victim and got out of the building, clearing ourselves and the victim through the wall in record time. If, I had to guess I would say less than 45 seconds from the time we went in until the time we were all out. It was AWESOME!

The final evolution was the hottest. Eight firefighters, plus two instructors, two hoselines and TICs went into the fire room and hung out while it got HOT in there. We had two lines of people and we rotated on the nozzle. I have to say, it was probably the hottest I have ever been in. We were just hanging out in there and the outside command came over the radio and said, "Interior ops, everything OK?" We all laughed and the instructor answered back, "We're just hanging out."

You could feel the heat literally cooking your. My hands were burning and tingling. The air in my pack was cool, when I first went in, but the longer I stayed in, the warmer it became. Right before I left the structure, the air going into my lungs was certainly hot. I kept thinking, this is hotter than my oven when I'm baking a cake!! After a while, I had to get out, my hands and knees were on FIRE! (Not literally, of course)

All in all, the day was a valuable learning tool for how and what decisions to make when faced with fire. I had a great time and I can't wait to do it again.