Week 3 Reflection

During week three, I spent a lot more time in Andover than in previous weeks. However, this week there was no lack of calls and no lack of work to be done. I ran on 11 calls: 8 medical and 3 fire. This week, I got to focus a lot on truck operations. The week started out with Sam and I drafting with the forestry with no one else. This is pretty cool because if it ever came down to it, Sam and I could take the forestry and set up a water supply for an outside fire or extinguish a small outside fire with no additional help. I also achieved one of my goals that I have had for a long time while I have been on this department, which is taking one of the engines out, preferably engine 1 because I wanted to get some practice down the road with a manual large truck. This along with the pump and operations I did in Franklin and New London, thanks to Greg and James, I can now pull up to a dry hydrant or a wet hydrant and be able to supply water to the deck gun or any other of the discharges. I also got some more experience doing wiring in the forestry and made the metal mount for the siren switch. I met my goal getting that truck ready to respond to a call with the exception of I need a different antenna connector. I have also gotten a lot more experience assisting on med calls doing things such as supplying people with the things they need and helping move patients from wherever they are to the ambulance. I ended with 52 hours this week and gained much experience.

Last Day

No calls again, but I still kept busy. I started out the day in the shop until the block before lunch. I got a lot of much needed boat work done, and finished my kinetic metal project and put that in the art show. I then picked up the forestry and brought it down to make a better mount for the mechanical siren switch. I made the small mount that I could mount on the existing holes in the dash. This took me about an hour and then Mansfield came over to the fire department I had him ride along while I moved the trucks around and put them back. It is all ways fun to show people around the fire station, because most times they seem to really enjoy it. What I find interesting about our forestry being from 1965 is everyone waives, looks, and comments. Its interesting how you can drive around in a brand new fire truck like 7 engine 4 or our engine 3 and no one really takes a notice, however the forestry and other older trucks get all the attention. I was also hoping to do some hydrant testing or drafting later in the day, but that didn't end up working out. Sorry for the short entry, but I had a change of plans so today ended up being pretty quiet. Thanks for reading the blog throughout the project and look for the last of the weekly reflections.

New London

Two calls today one in New London and on in the big city of Andover. Today started out with sleeping through the night at Franklin which doesn't happen all the time and I can't say I am complaining about it. I got off shift at 7 and headed up to New London only stopping to grab a different pair of boots and at Dunkins for breakfast. The day started out just like at the other departments I have ridden at and that is with a truck check. We were doing the ladder, but unlike at the other departments by 830 we were down at the smoke house playing around with the stick. James showed me what he thinks about with apparatus placement on a scene as well as where to set up the ladder for a chimney fire and a second floor escape. He let me run the ladder and let up for both these senarios. It was similar to the bucket truck I run at the farm and will toss the ladder around quite a bit if you are not smooth on the hydrolics. We next grabbed ladder belts which are like harnesses and naturally they were 4 inches to big around for me at their smallest setting. I put my bunker pants on to try and take up some of the space which ended up working pretty well. We finished with that and headed back to the station and he was mentioning some of the things he looks for and does while driving and operating the truck. Soon after we got to the station we assisted New London ambulance with a med call and then We headed out to do some pumping on bog road. We were drafting out of a dry hydrant which is what mostly happens in Andover although theirs were set up slightly differently using 5 inch suction instead of 6 inch. I got to operate a top mount pump which works functionally the same as a side mount but is a little interesting to get used to. He showed me some neat tricks with watching your intake pressure instead of your water stream to see if you are losing the prime. We also did two different ways of starting the draft, first back filling the hydrant which means flowing water down the hydrant to make it easier to prime the pump, this also will push any dirt leaves and whatever else is in the pipe or on the strainer. The next time we did it with just the primer. It didn't seem to be any harder without back flowing the hydrant but this was an easier hydrant to draft due to not much height difference between the water and the truck. I managed to get the pump primed and flowing to the deck gun and then we packed up and headed back to the station. The afternoon was pretty slow and at one point we resorted to checking out each others strobe set ups on our personal vehicles and then looking at strobes online. That was all for the shift and Tomorrow is the last day. No big plans as of yet, accept maybe some hydrant testing and making a mount for the siren switch in the forestry.

Last Franklin Shift

I had been looking to get a fire call the hole time I have been here through the last three shifts I have managed to miss them all, but this finally changed at 720 this morning with a box alarm downtown in Franklin. I rode with Joni in engine 3 and it was fun to actually hear a Q siren going to a call because it is somthing that all of Andovers engines lack. We also had some quality airhorn action going through the stop light at the end of west bow street. This however was not the highlight of the day. Just after starting hose testing we heard laconia respond to a box alarm. soon after we heard them having smoke in the first floor and requesting a first alarm. We started thinking about heading to our gear because on a second alarm 7 engine 4 goes to the scene. A few minutes later the make or break for when you are waiting to go somewhere which is Lakes Region answering Laconia's Command. Sitting in Franklin you cannot hear what the person in Laconia is saying but you can hear dispatch answering them they repeated over the radio Laconia Command Requesting a Second Alarm. By this time we had already had our gear on and were heading toward the truck. SOPs of Franklin says to wait a few minutes for aditional call personal to show up and hop in the truck. No one showed up in the time we waited so we headed out. This turned out to be the longest and most fun ride to a call I have ever been on. Lots of Q siren, Airhorns and a supprising ammout of traffic enroute. We showed up on scene and helped get tools our for Captain Hicks and Joni to head up and into the building if nessesary. I stayed with Greg who was running the truck if needed which on a fire like this water supply is was not an issue with the hydrants in Laconia. This highlights one major differance about fighting a fire in Andover and fighting a fire in a city, that being that water supply is a big issue in Andover and not much of an issue in Laconia. The bulk of the fire was knocked down when we arived, but they were still cutting vent holes, overhauling and doing work on the roof. Greg and I talked placement of apparatice like Laconias tower ladder which had to deal with lots of wires and tight operating quarters. We also took many pictures. It was lunch time by the time we got back and I made my usual cup of noodles. Just as we were finishing lunch another call came in and the day was shaping up to be a busy one. After that we prepared to go tour the dam which we had been waiting to do for most of the day and as soon as joni and I got into engine 1 and were about to start it up a med call came in. After this was finished we ran out of time to tour the dam which was dissapointing because I was looking forward to seeing that, but some days you just have to run calls all day which no one complains about. We had a paremetic intercept a little later in the afternoon and then Greg showed me how to tag the hydrant out back which I mostly did by with no gidance which I was happy about and I am now confident I could do in Andover if nessesary. Dinner went well although it was a little late because I was slow at cooking but they all engjoyed it and it turned out to be a success. I am off to New London tomorow and hopefully they will take me out on their boat and or do some ladder operations.

Tuesday

Once again no calls today, but I kept busy doing some mowing work I had been waiting to get done in the morning and then I spend a good part of the afternoon. At the Andover station keeping busy cleaning both engines because they had gotten pretty dirty in the rain on monday and engine 3 went to the controlled burn in danbury on Saturday. As I was wasing engine 3 a familliar face I hadn't seen in a while came over to say hi. It was seargent Majoney who was off duty and this is the first time I had seen him in about a month. We talked for probly 20 minutes and I had to show him the forestry's new siren and hit it. He also had to add on his way back by after stopping at Greens than I should hand polish the engine. I also had a person stop to drop of a donation because we filled his pool about a month back, and a rarety in Andover I actually answered the phone which hardly ever rings while anyone is at the station. In the afternoon I had to get ready to cook dinner at Franklin for my shift on tomorow and I had decided I would make Pizza and bring toppings to put on. Maddie and I went to Hanaford and she managed to babysit me through grocery shopping somthing I don't do often. We also made brownies for the guys and that went supprizingly well after cooking for about twice as long as they should have. Sorry this post is coming late I got busy applying for summer work and then fell asleep on my computer as usual which drew probly can attest to. Sumery of today comming right up after this.

Monday in Andover

No calls today, but there was no lack of firefighting work. Today was focused on truck operations and while it was raining it is a good time to do it because then you do not have to stand out in the rain. Today started off with my usual when its a slow sunday or just a day off from working at Franklin. I was cruising around the station checking on random things on the truck that I think of and trying to think of more projects I can do on the forestry. I went to the back of the forestry and noticed the rear discharge was leaking I tried a variety of ways to get it to stop but eventually just put the nozzle right on the discharge so that it would keep it from spilling on the floor. I also decided I should make a metal mount for the switch for the mechanical siren for the time being I had zip tied it to the bottom of the dash which works but isn't the most professional job. This brought me to lunch time and as I left the station I couldn't help but wonder if any of the towns people have noticed that my truck is all ways in the parking lot, and I am all ways at the station. After lunch Sam and I asked the chief if we could go draft with the forestry down on black water lane. He said we could so we loaded up and headed down. I had originally thought we should pull up somewhere around the bridge, but when we got down there we realized that the culvert farther down would be a better option. I am all ways impressed at how fast that thing primes itself. It also will pump with a lot of pressure and we didn't even have it going all out. It will pump up to 500 gallons per minute but you need a bigger suction than we are carrying on it right now. We pumped using all the discharges mostly for me to get a handle on running the truck because hopefully next brush fire if it ever stops raining I will get to not only try out the new sirens I put on it but run the truck at the scene. I eventually had sam take a 1 3/4 inch line off the reel in the back of the truck and pumped water toward him. Originally I sent him a little more pressure than he was expecting which was only about 1/4 throttle on the truck but the pressure was a lot to handle. He was amaised by the output of the truck and I got a cool picture of this which I will put at the end of this if i can figure out how and it will be on my final poster. Latter at the Andover meeting chief left it up to us to do what we wanted to train on. Zach and I were originally going to test one of the dry hydrants on switch road, but after the chief sent us to get soda at jakes which we bought 14 12 packs of, we ran out of time. Instead I asked if Zach could show me how run engine 1 down the road. We were sent to do it on some back roads and I have had a fair amount of experience moving it around the station and the parking lots but not on the road. I did better than I thought I was going to do because last time I was driving it out of first gear I was pretty shaky on the gear changes. For a transmission it is a 5 speed with a 2 speed rear end which means it has a high and low range. I got practice shifting through all the gears with no clutch because thats the way Zach wanted me to do it and the way I drive my friends dump truck. I also got a lot of practice shifting ranges and this gave me a lot of confidence for my CDL driving tests which hopefully I will take this summer. I have no set plans for tomorrow except calling New London in the morning and maybe making a bracket for that switch to mount on.

Week 2 Reflection

Week two has been a slower week than week one. I made progress on many of my goals including studying for my CDL air brakes test and did a fair amount of operating the Fire Department's trucks. This includes fueling the tanker, and operating the forestry vehicle's pump. I have been enjoying working not only in Andover, but Franklin and Sanborton as well. I have gained a lot of experience on medical calls which is not my strong point. This includes knowing more of what is going to be needed on certain types of med calls and knowing how and where o get supplies. I am still working on this more in Franklin than in Andover mostly because I am less familiar with Franklin's ambulances. I have however been able to learn where a lot of the fire equipment is on Franklin's trucks and about some of the equipment that they carry that we do not. This includes things like high rise bags and piercing nozzles. Getting a look into the daily operation and equipment at other departments has also been a good experience. Every department not only has strengths and weaknesses, but also excels in some ways and struggles in others. For example, Sanborton is staffed during the day which helps them to achieve very fast response times, where Andover struggles during the day time, due to most of its personnel having daytime jobs or being out of town, making them unavailable to respond. What is interesting is Sanborton has at night some of the same struggles Andover does during the day. Thia is not because of a lack of commitment or energy, but rather the logistics of having people living far away from the department. Next week, I will experience cooking at the Franklin Fire house on Wednesday, as well as training in Andover Monday nights and possibly some shifts at New London Fire.