Middlebury Fire

Today my brother a 3 year member of the Middlebury fire department showed me around their station and I got a look at their all their trucks. The first thing I noticed is that Middlebury has 5 custom chassis trucks. What that means is the cab and chassis are not maid by a commercial truck company. Two of these are HMEs like East Andover's new Engine 2 and two are made by Pierce and one Sparton. Needless to say they have very nice equipment. Its interesting to see a volunteer department with such new and nice equipment. Their oldest truck is from 1999 being their ladder which they are already talking about replacing. In Andover our newest truck is from 2003 and besides our 1965 Forestry our next oldest truck is the rescue, or the bread wagon as we affectionally call it being from 1981 I believe. They also carry a lot of specialized gear for a volunteer town. This includes a lot of technical rescue gear that they carry in Middlebury utility 2 and they have a full heavy rescue similar to Franklins. Another unusual for a volunteer department in the Andover region is they have a ladder. New London is the close surrounding town to Andover that is volunteer and has a ladder. Finally in Andover and most places the trucks are plugged into electricity and air. This charges all the electronic items on the trucks such as radio's and flashlights, but the air connection keeps the tanks full because the brakes on an air braked truck wont release until there is 65 PSI of air pressure. Normally the truck will have to sit and idle up to 5 minutes to build up the air pressure. This is probably avoided in Middlebury because they have such new equipment it has not acquired any air leaks like trucks do after a while. The equipment of the department often reflects how wealthy the town is. This makes visiting many different towns fire departments very interesting to see what equipment they have and what they carry.

Sanborton

Well today started off at 615 with a call for a motor vehicle accident in East Andover. I was kind of looking forward to a relaxing morning, but at least it waited till about 2 minutes after I got out of the shower. I packed my stuff and headed to the station where I found Andrew already in the rescue. This is a rare assurance for two reasons, one I am all most all ways the first one to the station, and secondly I almost all ways drive the rescue to car accidents. About 2 weeks ago Brooke came to the end of The fire meeting and went to plug in the rescue and chuck told her to put the cord through the steering wheel. When she asked why I said so no one can drive away with it still plugged in. Adam said well Evan is the only one who drives it, and its kind of true, but there are exceptions. Its also kind of become a joke that I all ways am messing with the forestry and when I showed up for a training a few weeks ago chief turned to me and asked if I was "going to take your forestry." This happens with other trucks like when Zach was first on the department the tanker was "his" truck. He has sense moved on to engine 1 which is his truck of choice to take. We got to East Andover station when 32 C3 which is Jake Johnson for anyone who doesn't know told Andover companies to go in service because they could handle it with just 32 engine 2 and the ambulance. We headed back and like last time Andover got a call before I was on shift I forgot my belt, maybe next time I will remember. I headed to Sanborton a little early because I was already out and showed up a half hour early cause it was a shorter drive than I thought and surprisingly I didn't get lost. Sanborton was a cool place it was like it was a combination of Franklin and Andover. It had very nice equipment like Franklin, but hanging around the station all day felt a little more like a day with the Andover guys. I am not saying I prefer Franklin or Sanborton, but they are both fun to hang out at. We only had one call and it came to us we never went out the door with lights and sirens to a call but we did manage to stay busy. The day started off with checking their utility which is a Dodge ram 2500 Magnum v8 which is the same truck I drive for work in the summer. I prefer the cummins in them, but anyway I was thinking how that truck could be very beneficial to Andover when I had my truck pulled into the Rescues bay the other day working on it I was thinking how nice it would be to have a pickup based truck there and all the extra stuff could be put onto Engine 1. it really opens the station up and with then the tanker could also be sold. We next had the med call before lunch and then we stopped to get fuel at exit 20 on the way back where I picked up a cheese burger for lunch because thats a little better than the cup of noodle I brought. We ate lunch with the police officers which is a new experience. Even though Sam and I know Sargent Mahoney pretty well and joke around with him a lot it still was fun to just hang out with some police officers. After lunch we pulled out the forestry and did some pumping up at The pond after almost getting stuck in the mud. Finally when we were done with that we got fuel in engine 3 back at the same place we had gone earlier. Diesel price there was pretty cheap at 402 cheaper than I had seen in a while and a quarter tank was 26 gallons which is a very large amount. Time seemed to fly by and that was it for the shift. Tonight I rinsed both engines, the forestry, and the rescue off and took the forestry out back to practice on the pump a little bit just to get more fermiliar with it. Tomorrow I head to VT to my brothers graduation for the weekend and I will have to have my brother show me around Middlebury Fire tomorrow.

Lakes Trip

My day started at 450 am this morning with a med call at Franklin. We got back to the station and turned on the Tv and got into the recliners. We watched the news and Greg and the captain fell asleep in the recliners while we watched the news. Needless to say I am pretty tired. After gettin off shift I headed back to proctor and caught breakfast for I think the first time over senior project I am usually busy when I get back. I got a waffle from Edna like every time I go to breakfast and it was very good as always. I then stopped by my room to change and grab my computer. I don't know why but I felt like doing my blog at the fire station this morning. This worked out very well because when I got half way through it we got a medical pre alert. Granted it is very nice when its a fire call and you are in the station, but being in the station so close to my truck its an unusual and very nice thing. I headed down to East Andover and then pulled the ambulance out on the apron and waited for someone else to show up. Jason and Sam showed up about a minute later and I moved to the back. Sence there is no drivers side window I couldn't see that greg had showed up and then he jumped in the passenger seat. On our way back from the call we stopped by New London Fire which was cool and they gave us a tour because Greg had never been there. After the call I headed back to the station to finish my blog and then I worked some on where I would mount the radio in the forestry. I might take that project on next week but I have to talk to chuck and see what he wants to do. Sam and I then called Lakes Region and set up to go visit there at one. For anyone not familiar with what Lakes Region is its our dispatch center. It was really cool to see all the screens and everything that goes in to dispatching a call. They showed us everything from when they first get the call to the button to hit to activate our pagers. It was kind of funny to sit there and I didn't immediately recognize their voices but once they got on the radio I defiantly recognized them. We had a fun ride back we made a few stops. First was Laconia's downtown station we were hoping Brad Hardie would be working but he wasn't on until tomorrow. It was really cool and houses the busiest company in our region and their ambulance is the busiest truck in our region which is pretty cool. They also have a very cool tower ladder. The next stop we couldn't help taking a cruise through Auto Serves parking lot to check out all the new Ford trucks. We looked and pulled up my truck next to its 2011 counter part and I should have taken a picture but I forgot. Next we had to pick up the food for Sam to cook for the Frankin guys tomorrow night, and last but definatly not least McDonalds. I got he usual thing and then looked over toward the window and saw will staring at me from his Tahoe window he had happend to be going to the drive through getting coffee. That was it for the days events tomorrow is Sanborton which will be very cool and hopefully it fun and its allways cool to get a look at how different departments work.

Busy Day in Franklin

Today held the record for the most calls for me on a shift so far. Even though I think my first shift technically had more calls 3 of them I did not go on. we had 8 calls went on 7 because one was a fire alarm activation as an additional call. We started off the day with truck checks Greg was around this time and he took showed me how he starts off the day running through the trucks that he is on for the day. He was on Engine 3, Engine 1, and the Ladder. He took the time to show me everything he went through which was cool. This included checking running and emergency lights, seat hight/positioning. mirrors, and a general check to make sure all equipment is there. We next moved into the truck check of the day which was the rescue. Every day there is one check that gets fully tested and all equipment on it gets fully tested. We started up top and he showed me all the tech rescue and water rescue gear as well as some of the hazmat. After we got done the top it was time for coffee break which is a cool time because a lot of the off duty guys and the administration all come back and we sit and talk at the break room table. We were talking about cars and trucks for a while which most people would know I love to talk about and do a lot. I got up to get a snickers bar out of the machine and right as I was taking my first bite. The pre alert went off so I turned around and headed for my gear. This was an interesting time because we were suppost to take the plow up to summer storage at 10 so we were cutting it close so Greg stayed behind with the deputy to take care of that. After coming back for about an hour our training was also had to be pushed back, and was delayed to after lunch. Finally it was lunch time which I wasn't sure what to expect because the talk of the day and even it started last night had been Captain Hicks making split pea soup. I had accutally had a message on my phone the night before from him asking me if I would like some. I said I would try it but I had never had it before. It turned out to be pretty good. In the afternoon Greg and I tested the box alarms which are the red boxes that you see on street corners and the sides of buildings that say pull lever for emergency. It is a really cool and old system. He had me calling the numbers to the station on channel 5 and filling out the sheet. We were driving along and heard on the Pd channel that they were going to be toning us to a report of smoke so we headed over and actually were on scene right as they were toning us. It turned out to be a pellet stove starting up and not an emergency. We had a fairly busy night with two med calls and only 4 hours of sleep. Mabe next time I will finally catch a fire call where I ride in a truck. Mabe off to dispatch today.

Back in Andover

Today started out at 830 with Will Ames on my phone. I wasn't really sure why he would be calling me, but he was asking me if I had the time to run him down to Bensons to drop a bus off. I said I could meet him a little later in the day, but when I showed up he had found someone else. I worked on my boat for until lunch and got my rudder epoxied and one of my spars done and got my mast step mounted. This was a good amount of progress so I spent the afternoon working on some stuff around the Andover station. I was working on Andover's mower because it had stopped raining so I figured I would mow the lawn. This did not really work out because or battery jumper doesn't work very well because it is really old and my jumper cables are in my brothers car. While I was working on it Greg one of the guys on the rescue squad and on my Franklin shift stopped in because he saw my truck outside. We talked about some of the things Franklin do and about some andover stuff. He also checked out the work I had done on the forestry. Its was fun to talk to him and its always fun to have people come by when you are working around the station its fun to show off the trucks and show people around because everyone seems to enjoy it. At about 630 we recieved a call for a tree down on Chase Hill road and I thought o what good opportunity to finally take the forestry however mac had already pulled out the rescue and Andrew said we didn't need 3 trucks for a tree down which he is very right, but still it would have been fun. The meeting tonight was truck checks and I picked the Tanker as usual. I always pick the tanker not going to lie because its the easiest but then I usually help start up all the saws and generators on the rescue which is fun. After the truck checks and talking in the break room for a while Zach said Engine 1 was in need of fuel because it was at 1/2 a tank and anything below 3/4 you are suppost to fill it. I asked chuck if he wanted me to fill the tanker because when I checked it it was between 3/4 and full, but Chuck wanted it filled because its going to the Danbury training burn saturday. That was all the events of the day and I am on at Franklin tomorrow so look for the post from that on wednesday morning.

Week 1 Reflection

During the first week, I have learned many of the customs and duties that go along with being on a full time fire department. I got to work with two different shifts and see the contrasting ways in how the captains run their shifts and their different work habits and how the group interacts. There are many differences between Franklin being a full time department and Andover being a volunteer-based organization. First, Franklin is much more professional looking for most medical calls because in Andover you respond in pretty much any clothing you are wearing unless you are at home and can see if you were in sweat pants or whatever put on a pair of jeans. I personally have responded in just about everything from a GS suit under my fire gear and in my full ski stuff to medical calls to going to responding covered in grease and anti freeze after replacing the thermostat in my truck. In Franklin, however, you respond in your work uniform, which consists of blue pants, blue fire department shirt, and dark colored boots. In addition to wearing your work uniform you must also wear a high visibility vest and safety glasses. In Andover, my vest stays permanently on my fire jacket unless I am dealing with an actual fire such as a structure fire or car fire. This is because the vest would melt to your jacket, which is slightly problematic.

I have liked the change for the most part and have really been enjoying the Franklin shifts. I do hope to catch a fire call because I have not been on one yet in my two shifts. Fire calls are where I feel much more comfortable because I know much more about what to do and usually do participate more. One thing I was surprised with was how much I miss moving trucks around the station. One of my next big goals, along with getting Firefighter 1 and EMT basic certified, is becoming an engine operator. During next week, I think I will benefit from spending one more day at a totally new department with the chance of being called on the interstate. I will also benefit from being back with Captain Hick’s shift at Franklin, and finally returning to the Andover meeting which I missed last week.

Sherborn Meeting

Today I got off shift at Franklin at about 730 because I was hanging around talking with the guys. I was pretty tired. I was planning on heading home fairly early but had to call my mom back who called me yestereday but I didn't get a chance to call her back. She I needed to pick up my grandpa to bring him back to his house to get a cable box. Its allways interesting because I have to pick up my 1969 Volkswagon Squareback because he can't get into my truck because its to high. I set out To do that and then we went out to lunch. I got a much later start home than I would have liked to. My big plan for the day was the sherborn meeting at 7 which I hoped would be some type of training caues they usually invite me to join. I started on my list of about 30 things my mom allways has for me to do while I am home, like power wash a bunch of stuff or fix other things which I don't mind cause it keeps me busy. I turned my brothers old pager on and hopefully soon to be mine if they deside to take me which I think they are. Just like every night the nightly equipment test went off at 645 and said there was a dinner meeting at station 1 so I headed down. Josh Buckler let me in the door and I think a bunch of the guys recognized me which is allways good. I talked to the Cheif and Josh about my application and they showed me the one signature I forgot which was a witness signature on one of the 10 pages I had to fill out. This is very different from the 1 page Andover fire application. So I drove home and got my mom to sign that and headed back. Jeff Hancock who is the Ems captain had showed up which was who I was waiting to talk to and was hoping he could interview me then but I guess he was waiting for that last signature. So I am waiting and hoping they will hire me cause it is payed per call so that is very nice, not that I mind volenteering, but a little compensation for all the fuel I burn going to calls would be nice.