SA Firefighter

General Discussion => OFF Topic => Topic started by: Mike on November 20, 2006, 11:51:07 PM

Title: South Africa
Post by: Mike on November 20, 2006, 11:51:07 PM
Well my good people's, I have to say.....
There is a heck of a lot of traffic over here in South Africa, and from what I can gather they dont actually need to see a gap to change lanes..... and to top it off it would seem that traffic lights and speed limits are only "advisory".

Will try and get to a fire station soon and post some photos.

Stay safe

Mike

PS: Ill be back in one piece, a cheeta tried to eat me, but apparently us Aussies dont taste very good ;)

Laters

Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: SA Firey on November 21, 2006, 08:36:14 AM
Remind them of these three words

AUSTRALIAN



CRICKET



TEAM

 :-D :-D :-D :lol:
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Smallflame on November 21, 2006, 03:49:10 PM


PS: Ill be back in one piece, a cheeta tried to eat me, but apparently us Aussies dont taste very good



Are you sure its Aussies mike, and not more of a personal problem  :-P

Sounds good though, look forward to the pics.
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Mike on November 21, 2006, 11:14:26 PM
Well.... I must look good cause i was the only person it tryed to eat....

Or then again maybe it was just desperate!

Anyways... went to one of the stations today.... Its good to know that they have the same problems as us. Their front line appliance was off with mechanical problems... the pumper/tanker had a flat (apparently they cant change it... and the "grass fire" appliance had a car run into it the other week.

A bit of a language barrier unfortunately. The person taking me round speaks good Africans, and.... I dont :( , so the info was very limited....

Grass fire unit:
1000lt.

Air unit:
can fill 3 x 300Bar cylinder at a time. Think it had a bank of about 8 N type cylinders, but it was a bit hard to tell.

Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Mike on November 21, 2006, 11:22:01 PM
last one for the moment...

The pumper tanker:
6000Lt water, 1000lt foam. Couldnt get the pump specs. The pump control panel consists of about 12 different valves and spreads the width of the truck.
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: fire03rescue on November 22, 2006, 06:16:24 AM
was this a paid or volunteer  station ?
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Robert-Robert34 on November 22, 2006, 09:49:25 AM
Hey Mike did you swap fire service badges  :wink: or gave them a CFS cap in exchange for one of theirs  :-D 
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: SA Firey on November 22, 2006, 10:45:34 AM
Hi Mike,

Nice pics....they have better stations than ours by the looks

We look forward to some more pics :-D
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Mike on November 22, 2006, 03:39:41 PM
All stations are paid.

The guys didnt collect badges there... but gave me some hints as to where i should be visiting. All a matter of finding the time to get away from work.

Did end up with a station commanders badge though..... he just happened to have a spare ;)

They are very large stations, with not much inside....

chat later guys..... have a good one.
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: SA Firey on November 23, 2006, 09:57:12 PM
There is not much inside the engine room, because they have somewhere to store all the stuff we cant :-P
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Robert-Robert34 on November 25, 2006, 02:56:12 PM
When i get a good paid job or win X lotto im planning to take a trip overseas and maybe visit a fire station in either Sweden,Thailand, Phillipines or Ireland :wink:
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: probie_boy on November 25, 2006, 04:03:03 PM
can I please just point out that the correct pronounciation is seth efrica. and that the number one song in seth efrica is currently ec/dc : beck in bleck.
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: SA Firey on November 26, 2006, 10:23:22 AM
No racial vilification allowed  :-P
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Mike on November 28, 2006, 09:23:06 AM
Well..... after 11.5Hrs of sitting in a plane (ouch) im home.... although that was better than the 15.5 on the way there!

Unfortunatly, I never managed to make it to any of the other stations though :(

Its amazing how many "interesting" calls happen when I go away..... Miss all the fun!

Ah well.... plenty more season to go yet....

do you think I could order a scotch and coke!!!! wiskey was a little easier to get across.... but that was followed by 20 questions.... what brand, what type, double/ single?... etc etc

Was good fun though, even if i did have to work.
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Ryan on November 28, 2006, 09:58:39 AM
what were you doing over there Mike?
Title: Re: South Africa
Post by: Mike on November 28, 2006, 11:53:22 AM
Training people to set up automation systems.... most of the time anyway...