Thursday, April 14, 2011

Back to school

Last ngiht was the start of my bushfire firefighting course. The course material was interesting - we covered fire behaviour. Much of the material was revision, due to my previous firefighting experience, and my interest in severe weather came in handy when dealing with weather factors that influence fire behaviour.

Looking forward to next week's installment.

Friday, April 01, 2011

Now for the serious stuff

Over the last 6 months, readers might have gotten the impression that the fire brigade here is a glorified sporting club. This is certainly not the case, though for reasons of time pressures, I've only focused on competition work over the last summer. Now that the season is over, and I'm no longer out for a few hours 2 nights a week, I can now focus on the serious business of handling fire and other emergencies that we have to deal with.

Since I was last involved in the fire service, much has changed, with a totally different communications network, new equipment, new training and new standards. This means I have to start again from scratch. On Sunday, I'm back to the station to take part in regular training, testing and maintenance activities.