SA Firefighter
General Discussion => Country Fire Service => Topic started by: bittenyakka on February 13, 2009, 08:43:22 AM
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Since i know some of you went to Vic and lent a hand i have a few questions for you all.
-Were the Vics any better at us in arranging a staging area and getting crews into and out of it to the fire promptly? that it both you guys/girls? and CFA.
- What were there appliances and gear like? could we learn anything from them?
- are there any major differences that you saw in the methods of firefighting used across the border?
- What would you recommend be done differently to make these deployments "theoretically" run smoother in the future?
If anyone else has questions feel free to add them BUT make sure this is only Q&A not a discussion about why and how. you can make a new thread for that.
thanks
bitten
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Bitten
good questions but a bit hard to reply to this morning. I'll try and do a little tonight when i have more time
I've been thinking about a post deployment report from the Crews perspective to supplement the report that no doubt will come from the Deployment leaders. If anyone else who went cares to contribute let me know.
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Hi Bitten,
In regard to the CFA Staging area the following comments come to mind;
a. Well laid out
b. Portable coolrooms provided for boxes of drinking water and sports drinks
c. 2 x 20' containers filled with equipment to hand out i.e camel packs, personal first aid kits, gloves, hats, safety glasses, respirators etc, etc.
d. Excelent food with good size survings (had use of uni campus cafe areas)
e. Excelent briefing room (Uni Lecture Hall)
In regards to the CFA Appliances
a. Newer dual cab Hino's were pretty good,but have a huge turning circle.
(wouldn't let us alone on Grange Tanker :-D lattest build complete with mini monitor on bull-bar)
b. They don't use 25mm layflat, thus we dragged 38mm :-(
c. There live reels are only 20m at best with a TB15 fitted (first thing we all did was swap it with the TFT that they kept in the locker)
d. They didn't have UHF sets to use on the appliances for use on the fireground They may have been removed, not sure.
Thats is about all i can think of at the moment.
e. They have a special foam aplicator branch that works realy well
e. Older appliances didn't have burn-over curtains on the crew decks
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38mm layflat cant be that bad...using the forestry firefighting techniques shouldnt be too much of a drag at all.
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I just got back as Strike Team Leader of ST 1006, we definitely need to ensure that all are fires are near a University from now on. The staging area setup that they had there was brilliant, the food was awesome and the briefings in the lecture theater was great, made the start to the day a lot easier.
The use of the portable building in the staging area for Logistics was a good idea and the equipment cache in the shipping containers is also definitelyy worth looking at for us.
I can't comment too much about their appliances because I wasn't on one, but there is certainly a big difference in standard between the newer dual cabs and the old Hinos. Most of our trucks didn't have any roll down burn over blankets which was a worry, luckily we were not in a position where we would have needed them.
By the way if anyone from the first deployment was in the Traralgon South sector the peat bog was still going well last night when I left it.
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Our tanker had 25mm layflat which made life very easy for us in the area we were working in. The portable pump (not floating) on one tanker in the strike team was a God send as there were not many, if any, hydrants but loads of dams. The tanker i was on was an older Hino from a rural Brigade. It was more than acceptable for their area and the work we were doing. The slight hiccups were easily rectified with the mobile CFA workshop crews back at the staging area. Meals were awesome at the Uni cafe with a chef onsite. It was definitely an easier operation as there was no night crew, so there wasn't much, if any, hurry up and wait.
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Our crew said the whole set up was great well layed out and something that we should look at when we do have large fire's, food,accommadation,briefings,and the SALE TANKER that they had was top's.
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any pictures of this sale tanker your talking about?
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will upload soon...
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Re 25mm layflat hose. My CFA Region has equipped all of our brigades with 2 x 20 metre lengths, but it's not general across the CFA.
Also re live hose reels (or on older tankers a coiled length of 19mm heavy rubber hose draped over the back of the truck). We generally refer to it as the 'PR' hose - the hose you use to make it look to the public as though you're doing something, whilst the rest of the crew roll out some 'real' hose! Although it does have value when blacking out or for small jobs, however it's heavy and bulky on a reel.
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i agree with you there allan :D
we hold 180m of 25mm on all of our appliances as standard.
180m x 64mm & 120m x 38mm on the "pumper/tanker" appliances, and 30m x both on the "Light tanker" appliance. (to use CFA's terminology)
We are yet to move into 38mm rural hose. Even tho Plantation firefighting course somewhat promotes it.
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G'day Allan
One of the comments made by a mate who went across in first deployment was
that it was sooooo much easier moving our 25mm around in the scrub. The way
we use water generally doesn't require a 38s capacity. W usually only run at
a fraction of a 25s capacity. We carry 38 but generally only use it for the
beginning or middle of really long hose-lays.
Agree that 19mm seems too small for anything except mop-up.
cheers
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theres not enough time for all the Q and A's lol
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get around to it when ya can mac13 no hurry :)
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what did any one think about the comms....HANG ON what comms??
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hmm...
Well the communications done on Saturday night (black saturday) were done, brilliantly in the worst of circumstances, listened in most of the evening.
I guess they didnt involve CFS manned appliances in wider scope communications? jst with your Support force leader? CFA love there radio protocol.
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Just back in from Vic this arvo...
I loved working with the 38mm canvas lay flats... similar amount of effort as a 25mm to drag around, and I really love having wajax couplings on 38's, makes them much much better...
1 thing Imust pick on is the fact that there were no tft/protek/akron type branches on the truck we got... argh.
and comms...what comms?, or should I say the communications were rather fluid, or some may prefer floppy.
would have been "nice" to have a trunked radio channel to use, and to have a portable or 20 for the strike teams, as it made things quite difficult when working away from the truck.
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ah, gonna pack a tft and a few UHF CB Radio's when/if i go.
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ah, gonna pack a tft and a few UHF CB Radio's when/if i go.
DSE saying 4-6 week long range forecast is no rain...more like how many times u go rather than if... :wink:
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... and I really love having wajax couplings on 38's, makes them much much better...
Do they use wajax on the 38's or storz? (however it's spelt :? )
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wajax on 38's and a combination of a London Round'ish (didnt have anything to compare it to, but looked rather close) looking threaded coupling (for pressurised supply) and storz for suction.
although the DSE quick fill pumps have a different threaded coupling, which you are able to sort of cross thread into the London Round'ish one.
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Yeah we had the same thing, looks like london round but isn't quite, someone said they thought it might be a dairy coupling. And no matter how tight you do it up it still leaks when you put it under any pressure (only seem to get one turn on the thread instead of 2 or 3 on our london rounds). The forestry couplings on 38's are good.
Has anyone mentioned the hose reel that only has 15m of hose on it? We had a pretty new truck and it was quite advanced in many areas but so backward in hoses, couplings and branches (and no portable radios as already mentioned).
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DSE used 5 thread plastic couplings where as CFA use 3 thread and wajax, have to say that its BYO TFT or proteck as not much gear is on the rural tankers.. Teh staging area was well set out and would have to say its the best I have ever seen.. Comms what is that was a big let down and there where no handheld radios in tankers they myst have been removed as all briagde's have them or they did...
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Sorry, on reflection I was actually mistaken... there was 1 portable radio on a truck from SA0601 (possibly Timboon?), I believe the OIC found it in one of the overhead compartments in the cab.
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Hi after just returning from the North Murrunindi complex fires i have to say that it was handled well for the complexity of the incident, yes we did a lot of waiting around, but once tasked it was OK in my opinion...
Few things we noticed.
We took 4x portable UHFs that came in handy the whole time, especially on a back burn down a hill..
We commented that some form of communication in tent city may have helped, a white board with strike team no. then location and meeting times?
The trucks were OK, tiny pumps and minimal equipment but we knew what we had and worked with it. The comms was OK, but 2 channels for the entire complex.. hard to get a word in.
Other than that was an enjoyable experience and well worth it.
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for those that went from R1 there is a debrief 16/17 March (ask your G.O. if you haven't been told).
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for those that went from R1 there is a debrief 16/17 March (ask your G.O. if you haven't been told).
of course....a 2 day debrief .....and its on week days, wonder if they will be knocked over in the rush by those who have jobs to take another 2 days leave/holidays or unpaid time off to attend
sometimes their dumbness is astounding
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They should have it after hours or on the weekend.....
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you guys crack me up sometimes. Like I said: ask your G.O.'s
(for those of you quicker with the typing fingers than the grey matter: the two sessions are for the two fires CFS crews went to and it's in the evening not daytime).
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you guys crack me up sometimes. Like I said: ask your G.O.'s
(for those of you quicker with the typing fingers than the grey matter: the two sessions are for the two fires CFS crews went to and it's in the evening not daytime).
wow....someone better tell my DGO then....he told me tonight that it was both days....and during the day. Maybe the gray matter is only as good as the garbage in
And if that is the case and you knew that when you wrote the post....why not include it??? Or is it a little case of Knowledge is Power?
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wow....someone better tell my DGO then....he told me tonight that it was both days....and during the day. Maybe the gray matter is only as good as the garbage in
And if that is the case and you knew that when you wrote the post....why not include it??? Or is it a little case of Knowledge is Power?
Perhaps a case of not getting your information from a backwards internet forum?
Just for info though, there is a debrief on the 16/17th march from 0900 - 1600 at STC Both days, and is a requirement for all persons involved in any Victorian deployment so far in 09...
...or something