SA Firefighter

Quote from: Blue on January 19, 2008, 11:52:29 AM

I find that crews get used to 'pulling out dummies' at training and they tend to forget about first aid after removal, cos it was only ever a dummy.

Train how we play as much as we can. You can make it a toxic environment as in CO or something, then there is no smoke but it may be quite dark if possible?

Just some more thoughts

i assume you aren't saying put real people in a room with toxic concentrations of carbon monoxide to play dead?

Duh    Ok so you have to use your imagination to some degree, its CO, not like you can see it there anyway.
Tho as Smallflame says, we could 'volunteer' certain superfluous persons for the job 

1905686 04:04:52 22-01-08 PRIMARY ALARM, I1: FIP RHS MAIN ENTRY, POLICE STATION, BAY RD, MOUNT GAMBIER, ALARM 70/048 MFS Mt Gambier Response

That says it all 

SAPOL in attendance   

But Blue, your post has challenged me to re-think my attitude to these people. 
I shall have to work on patience & rein-in the sarcasm.  Or maybe not... 

We love sarcasm on a written forum where you can't hear the tone of voice, always goes down  well 

First lesson in adult education is that people don't learn/aren't interested if they don't think they need to learn it. But if the required level of experiential learning is being caught in a fire unprepared, that can mean you aren't around to do it better next time... 

Hate to say it but I'm one of those. I can tell you 'turn right at that place with the awful palm tree in the lawn' but I can't tell you what street that is. I navigate by landmark, its just how my brain works....

I think there is a small fraction of society that would purposefully put themselves in harms way but not cleaning up their property, I think the issue is that it is not in most people's realm of understanding that a bushfire could have such an impact on them. Its like driving everywhere and never thinking you'll be in an accident - we never think it will happen to us, so we go a little faster and leave braking a little late.

So I don't think people are shirking a responsibility, its more that they don't tend to believe that that responsibility is a reality and their actions can make all the difference.

How many people take shorter showers cos we are on water restrictions? I bet only a fraction of society. Because the others don't really conceive that it will make 'that much of a difference' and it doesn't affect them directly if they have a 30 minute shower (there's no visible outcome) but it affects them if they have a five minute shower (with still no visible outcome of more water to use unless your on rainwater of course).

Does that make sense? So people could go out of their way to clean up their property but until that fire is knocking at their door, there is no benefit in clearing up, and so believing the fire probably never will impact them they use that time to get something else done instead. Like go fishing.

JMO, studying psychologist and social behaviourist in the making....

1905686 12:27:30 18-01-08 MFS: INC # 34 - 18/01/08 12:27,RESPOND Assist Resident,8 MCDONALD ST,MT GAMBIER, MAP 0 0 0 ,,CAT STUCK IN A TREE FOR 3 HOURS ACROSS FROM FREW PARK,MTG701*CFSRES: MFS Mt Gambier Response

Here Kitty Kitty come on down 

Ha ha Rob you beat me, I posted it on the wrong one LOL

It's a pity to see that yet again the media are reporting that the Aviation support (note: Support) won the day and that my god does SA need its own sky crane blah blah blah.

CFS Media really need to promote the fact the the poor firies on the ground are the ones doing the hard yards and that aircraft are not the be all and end all of rural firefighting.

Yep, but at the end of the day the wow factor sells, and the wow bit that people can see for miles is the fact that aviation support is buzzing low across their homes and dumping impressive amounts of water - of course that will get more media attention. We need to have more media crews on the fire ground getting vision of us. Plus media don't need to have proper training or gear to be able to get cool shots of aerial bombing, so the story will reflect the images that can be easily obtained.

Where's the artist's impression COMP00?

Mine is attached

Well lets not be too hasty, I don't think any one has formally assessed their psychological stability as yet   

I'm in a different building now and out of the grapevine - does anyone know where the 'on again/off again' combined services base in Mt Gambier is at? I know the forestry buildings are being demolished on the proposed site, but what's going ahead now?

Last I heard was SES wasn't keen on moving out of the town centre and CFS didn't think there would be enough room out there, ForestrySA had some concerns with traffic....

Bit early for photos unless you want the demolition stages too. Single bay, with a  kitchen/wash room/meeting come training room thingy out the back. Restricted by available area at the site (not physical land area, but alloted space). Maybe Camo could put together an artists impression using the 'paint' program LOL

Maybe we'll do a practice run for Bunnings when someone burns a snag at the BBQ on the front door....

Solves nothing.. - You ever been to a going job Jaff?.. - *EVEN* if someone was on hand to d/load all the video, and *even* if there was equipment on the truck (monitors, power supplies, cords, cables) and *even* if the camera managed to see anything through all the smoke, steam and soot.. - By the time you have reviewed the footage to make a mud map of the operators 15 minute wear in the house, you would look up at a pile of smouldering rubble!

He heh, true. I had a dream a while ago about a structure fire (I have bizarre dreams about innovations - if I followed up on any one of them I'd be rich) - we currently have a system that can relay information back to the appliance about how much air you are consuming and at what rate, this is technology now. In my dream we rocked up at a going house fire and at the front of the house was a post that had a chip in it and you swipe across the post and it downloads an image of the floor plan onto a small screen hanging on your set (that doubles as a distress signal unit and also sends data back about your air consumption) and when you enter the building it tracked your location, so i had this little light where I was in the house on the map, and I could follow along a wall or into another room, etc. It also had a temperature reader in it, and you could point a laser at anything from the base of the unit and it told you what temp it was.

All those that have done anything with satellites know that they are crap inside buildings - well this wasn't satellite driven per se, it was like it was triangulating off the appliance and off the pole at the front of the house, which were both using satellites to pinpoint their location or had a known location. Anyway, in the dream we were using it like it was standard stuff and nothing out of the ordinary.

So...anyone have a spare $300m so I can make a prototype?? 

I'm certainly interested in everyone's responses about the second part of the question, so far it seems that its either "In your blood" and its hard to just walk away from, or more like "I don't really know why I'm still here" because the politics of it all gets you down.

I walked through the door to do something different for the community and as a team (as opposed to my usual environmental stuff) and I hate team sports so this seemed like a much better option to me!

I'm glad I joined for the people who have taught me many things about life, about communication, about how to treat other human beings and how not to, the friends I've made over the years, the skills I've learnt, the things I've learned about myself and what I'm capable of (and what I'm not capable of!) and of course the fact that I met my fiance through the service.

As for why I stay....well, I simply think I'd miss it, though I don't wish to have such an active role anymore. Life takes on other priorities and I have several other opportunities in my life to serve the community in different ways. I don't think CFS utilises their people as well as they could, and it is often forgetten how much time and effort volunteers give up to do things for the service. The service seems always to be expecting more, and treating everyone less like volunteers but still expecting the same level of voluntary comittment. The term community is sadly lost on many brigades, and is something I enjoyed about my short stint with the CFA, where that term is more wholeheartedly used for some reason. Community education and awareness is driven by the brigade, fund raising and community events create a 'sense' of community and a value of the service given. Every training opportunity was washed down with a cold beer or squash and a BBQ. No member wouold ever dream of not coming along to the social events. Education is centralised in CFS, and fund raising was even frowned upon at one stage.

What keeps me going is that there is a need. But as the new crews appear and young enthusiastic people come along, and as the sense of community surrounding brigades fades, I'm more inclined to chat to my neighbour over the fence about fire safety as my little ode to prevention, rather than jump on the back of an appliance.

My god, maybe I'm just getting old