week eight/ nine

finally through with the marathon that was the last two weeks. week eight was the completion of the firefighter one portion of the program. we took our written and physical test on wednesday. everyone passed with no problem. friday night was our night burn, which was a simulated propane fire. it was a lot of fun because our families and friends were able to come out and see what we have been training so hard for over the past eight weeks. beth and rob showed up to give suport , and beth documented the experience. last weekend was our RIT (rapid intervention team) training. the RIT is the team of firefighters that is standing by on scene in case a firefighter goes down on the inside. we learned a ton of cool stuff and we got to destroy some walls as well. it was another milestone in the program, and was also the bridge between ff1 and ff2. week nine was our second burn. this time we were doing a search and rescue inside two shipping containers. in one end the instructors had set up a wood pallet fire. while it was hot, there was not a ton of work to be done, at least for the first two passes. on the third pass, we had to breach a wall, chop wood for two minuites on our knees, and then complete the search and rescue. we were also given the opportunity to use a thermal imaging camera in the box. i think the hottest it got for my team in the box was around five hundred degrees. it was intense, but manageable. we also learned about vehicle extrication this week, and the instuctors turned us loose on some cars with the "jaws of life". it is amazing what those tools can do. in a matter of minuites, we were able to remove all the doors, roll back the dashboard, and remove the roof. this week was also our night senario. we were required to stay on campus thursday night, and at some point during the night, we were woken up to respond to an alarm. in my team's case, we were responding to a multiple car fire. it was a lot of fun, but because i was expecting to be woken up all night, i did not get a ton of sleep. but as the instuctors kept reminding us, that is the way it is going to be when we get on shift. next week is week ten, and we are all nervously anticipating graduation. just two more burns stand in our way. thanks for the comments and emails, keep 'em coming. hope everyone has a great weekend.