How Much Rain?

I posted a version of this elsewhere, but it struck me that this could be a very important thing for fire departments, especially volunteer fire departments, to know. So I'm tailoring it for this blog to let others know what's available.

I was recently alerted to CoCoRaHS, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network. I took a look at it and thought about it for a day and then I registered. I have a considerable interest in weather, I love to see maps, I love the idea of citizen participation, and I love seeing Oglethorpe County maps. So.

Before I say anything else, let me say this: get over to the CoCoRaHS page, and register. Better yet, get your kids to do it, if you have kids. Nothing could be easier, nor the instant gratification so great. If you have an interest in the weather, and who does not?, you can add to a daily database that provides unique and valuable information. If you can read a rain gauge, remember to read it every morning by 7am, have enough access to the internets to log on and put in one number and hit submit, then that's it! It occupies about 5 minutes of your time, or better yet (again), your kids' time. CoCoRaHS would like everyone to use the same rain gauge, so there is that investment (I ordered mine yesterday, even though I have a good one), and they would like everyone to have participated in at least an online training session.

Now not all states are yet a part of it, but many that are not, are coming online in 2008 - check the home page for CoCoRaHS for the listing. Georgia just came online May 1, due to the efforts of a few interested folks. California goes online in October, it looks like. HAHA - Georgia beat California, neener neener.

I took a few screenshots because I think it's pretty impressive. As I said, there's instant gratification, and your results are updated fairly instantly onto the maps. For firefighters, knowing the rainfall in parts of the county can be pretty important. I know how much rain fell yesterday here in my little spot at Wolfskin, but I have no idea how much fell near Vesta, or Philomath, and as we all know, rainfall can be different even a few miles away, and Oglethorpe County is a BIG county. Well, this tells you that, provided there's someone to report.

And I can enjoy refreshing the Oglethorpe County map (there are *12* active participants in Oglethorpe - imagine that!) during the course of the early morning to see my fellows gradually adding their data along with mine. The power of the internets, used the way it should be!

Here's the US map on May 11, the Mother's Day storm system, for rain that fell from 7AM May 10 to 7AM May 11. You can pretty much tell the states that don't participate yet - Washington, California, Minnesota, Arkansas (and isn't that a pity, considering), but many of those are coming online soon. The gray dots are reports of no rain, and those are extremely important. ALWAYS enter the zero for no rainfall - that negative evidence is just as good as any rain at all, even better.

Just look at Oregon: you can see where the rainshadow cast by the mountains is just by viewing the transition from blue dots to gray ones.




Here's the map of Georgia on the same day, with portions of surrounding states. Unfortunately a lot of folks who are registered didn't add their data if there was no rainfall. But they should have! And you can see that there are empty counties - Georgia needs a lot more participants, particularly if you live in a rural area. CoCoRaHS ultimately would like to see active participants every few square miles, and especially in rural areas. But not bad, really, considering that Georgia has only been online for less than three weeks.




Here's what you see when you look at the station map for Oglethorpe County. I'm down there at near the southwestern boundary with Clarke County. Notice that my station, GA-OG-12, is right next to GA-OG-3, the labels overlap. That's my neighbor up the street. But those data are not redundant, because even a mile away rainfalls can be different, as everyone knows. And that's another thing - yes of course there are professional weather stations, but they're so far and few between, nothing like this density.

However, you can see that parts of the county are not represented. We need some Beaverdam folks, some Philomath firefighters, maybe Vesta, Salem, Glade, and Maxeys too, to add their data.




And so on May 11, nine of the twelve Oglethorpe County participants gave climatologists and other interested parties these data. I'm the 2.00 inches of rain, but just north of me two folks only got half that, whereas Lexington got slightly more than that.

It's that degree of resolution that makes this so valuable, something that cannot be achieved professionally.




Another benefit: yesterday's email exchanges with the Oglethorpe County Coordinator, as well as with the Georgia Region 1 Coordinator, introduced me to a couple of great folks whose interests overlap considerably with mine, and not just in the arena of measuring rainfall.

I see the possibility of uploading this county map on a daily basis, to inform everyone of the previous day's rainfall. Much of the time (as we know) we'll all know we're dry and should be careful. But rain falls the way it wants to, and some parts of the county may be dry and some not. Wouldn't it be good to know?

--Wayne

Joint Training

Last night was our Third Thursday, and Arnoldsville FD brought their new pumper, their pride and joy, and initiated us into the mysteries of its operation.

AFD and Wolfskin have worked together before on the Mod 1 training class last spring, but not in our regular training sessions, and of course we meet often on fire calls. But those aren't so relaxed, and so this was a great opportunity to get to know each other and our respective equipment.

AFD Chief Joe Siegert and company put their pumper through its paces, introducing us to its capabilities. ATO Andy got scooted back a few feet when we upped the psi through a 4-inch hose to 250. And then we gave AFD the gift of a refill of water from our tanker to send them on their way.

I took the camera but of course completely forgot about it, and so don't have any memorabilia to offer. But you can surf right on over to Arnoldsville's new website and see some pics of the new pumper there. And leave a comment to let them know you were there.

And that brings to mind - I've added a section that I need to put in a better place - for any and all of Oglethorpe County's fire department websites. That now includes us, Arnoldsville, Philomath, and Salem.

--Wayne 411

New Firefighter Brian

I say "new firefighter" but Brian has been fighting wildland fires in North Carolina and south Georgia for some time now, so he already had more experience than most of us have in that arena. This experience overlaps nicely with his interest and education in Forestry.

The great news that we all congratulate him on is that he has passed the written Mod 1 exam, which he took as a challenge. This means that he didn't take the weeklong lecture part of the course, but passed (and more than just passed) the written exam studying on his own.

And last Thursday Mar 27 he spent all day proving himself by going through the required structure fire practical. From his description last night it sounded pretty rigorous, with basements and multiple rooms involved during various times of the day. Despite all that he was on his way to our usual training night at Wolfskin but was sidelined en route by a flat tire. Apparently there are no ten-codes for that.

Brian will be heading out west for a two and a half-month job starting in June (I think), where he'll be working with crews fighting wildland fires in Montana and Idaho, if I recall correctly. We might be hearing from him and seeing some photos that he sends us this summer, and we'll post those as they come in and keep everyone informed.

Of course we're all pleased with him and excited for the opportunity he has this summer but that means he won't be here in Wolfskin, and he'll certainly be missed.

(BTW - I haven't put last names - I never do unless it's clear that it's ok. I certainly will be glad to do so if it meets approval. Brian's efforts have been a great accomplishment.)

--Wayne

Events of February

We held our First Thursday Business Meeting on March 6. A number of accomplishments that should not go unnoted:

The Assistant Chief and Chief Ed Frey journeyed to Forsyth on Feb 29 Friday for a structure burn class. This ended up going until after 9pm, and they were tired firefighters indeed.

The yearly Firefighter Weekend occurs a little early this year, also in Forsyth, Mar 14-16. Four of us, at least, will be going this year: Phyllis and Glenn will be taking the NIMS Intro to Unified Command course, Wayne the Georgia Fire Incident Reporting System course, and Andy the Intro to Wildland & Wildland Urban Interface Firefighting.

Brian, besides implementing the fantastic logo placements on the tanker and pumper, is spending his spring break in south Georgia, conducting prescribed burns. Before he left he passed the CPR with flying colors and took the Mod 1 written exam as a challenge. We'll look forward to his return.

Phyllis, our former Fire Chief, has returned after a year of regeneration. She sold $2,126 of steer raffle tickets to benefit the fire department. That's a huge amount of work, and many thanks to her. See her letter to the Editor of the Oglethorpe Echo of March 6, but she's right in thanking the Commercial Bank for its steadfast support:

Once again our Oglethorpe County Volunteer Fire Departments have benefited tremendously from another successful steer raffle fundraiser. We thank the Commercial Bank which for many years—about ever since I can remember—has bought the champion steer from an Oglethorpe County youth at the Washington-Wilkes Steer Show and then donated the steer to the volunteer fire departments for the raffle. It’s a win-win deal all the way ‘round. The youth gets a good price for his/her steer, some lucky person gets a steer for a $1 raffle ticket, and each VFD gets to keep all the money from their own ticket sales.

Let me know if I missed anyone!

--Wayne

WVFD Logos!

Be sure to attend the Tuesday, Feb 19, Oglethorpe Firefighter Association meeting at 7:30pm. Chuck Gulley, EMA Coordinator for Athens/Clarke County Fire & Emergency Services (ACCFD), will be the guest speaker. Chuck will also bring along the Hazardous Materials Response Vehicle from ACCFD. Glenn has attended a hazmat awareness course given by him and says he's quite a good speaker.

On to something we've wanted to do for a long time.

We've never had logos for our pumper and tanker, and so Brian took matters in hand in the last month. He canvassed the department for input as to what the logos should look like, and then had the decals printed up. He was determined to have at least the tanker done by last Thursday's business meeting so he drove down to Cumming to pick up the logos and he and I spent Thursday afternoon on them, completing the business 30 minutes early. Very nice color selection.


The entire logo came on three decals that had to be positioned carefully. They're considerably reflective!


With two trucks and two doors, that makes four complete decals. It was just about dark by the time we finished the tanker.


On Friday afternoon we completed the pumper, whose doors are shaped a little oddly compared to the tanker.


It was late afternoon with a declining but still bright sun. Nonetheless we had to have a good reflective photo of the new logo. Boots and logos by Brian!

Special All-Day Saturday Training January 12

I'm late in getting this training session written up. It's photograph heavy, so most of the pics are thumbnails, and you can see a somewhat larger version in a new page by clicking on the thumbnail. I have even larger versions, so let me know if you want a particular photo and I'll email it to you.

This was an all-day session Saturday Jan 12. We met at Wolfskin Station at 8AM, or most of us did, anyway. Ultimately there were six of us here - a couple of us were rabbit hunting that day and couldn't make it ;-) . Nice and cold - temperatures below 30 to start with, and stayed in the 40s all day.

One of the problems with Thursday night training sessions is that while they allow us a coupla hours to practice tactics, they don't give us enough time to really exercise the demands that a large fire call lasting for hours would. This was a good idea - we ended up using most of our stuff.

The event was a large woodpile that had accumulated for a few years, and it represented an opportunity to stage a burn as though it were a real all-day scene. (Note that we don't normally burn in this manner, or necessarily recommend it. It was a convenient and valuable training exercise. Not to say that we didn't have fun.)

After calling in for a permit and notifying 911 so they'd be able to reassure passersby and neighbors, we set off for the burn site. (Note on permit: the permit number is a cell phone number. Not much good if you're in an area of non-reception, as we were.)

Our first mistake - no one had thought to bring the sausage biscuits for breakfast. (Our second, and only other mistake - no one thought to bring any food at all. A fire picnic lacking in food over nine hours is not a picnic at all.)

The first coupla hours were in setup. We eventually used all three 2500-3500 gallon drop tanks. The pumper was our first out and working truck for the incident.


It took three trips with the tanker to fill them all. A successful backup down a muddy slope:


Outgoing Chief Mike Geraci is giving his final instructions to incoming Chief Ed Frey, behind the tanker.


Since we don't close hydrant access in our fire district, the drop tanks are a necessity. Here's two thumbnails showing the connections we've developed for increasing their flexibility, and a third of the excuse for the event.

Left - a tight connection between the drains of two drop tanks allows us to treat two as one. Water delivered into one flows into the other so you don't have to move the truck to prevent overflow.

Middle - a jet siphon. With this you can use the venturi principle and move around large amounts of water through a six-inch hose by jetting a smaller amount of water through a smaller hose into the larger one. That's the brain child of our new Asst Chief and Training Officer, and it worked the first time.

Right - the ostensible reason for this event grown large. That's a foam stick nozzle, and we were testing it out for the first time. The old way is to use buckets of foam concentrate, which is awkward. The foam nozzle here has a single foam stick inserted into it and the delivered water dissolves the solid material gradually, delivering foam out the end. It worked *really* well.




Four of us worked on setting up while the other two played in the woodpile preparatory to setting it on fire, which we did around 10:48AM, according to the time stamp on the first photo. This one was taken well after things got going. The lads did a good job prepping the pile for an efficient burn.


The first thumbnail on the left is just for show, but the middle one shows the hose connection. We used a wye to give two streams, one to a conventional nozzle being lugged around by the stalwart fellows on the left, and the other heading off to the right to the foam nozzle.

The third thumbnail shows the use of fog to cool the American Heroes in back as they approach, say, a burning propane tank, though not in this case.

By noon, the fire was going merrily. We had a total of thirteen 50-foot lengths of 1-1/2 inch hose hooked together in three lengths and separately connected to various outlets on the pumper. Our engineer did a great job of providing water and controlling pressure from several hundred feet away. Some of us used our radios to communicate - others just yelled or gestured impatiently.

First row of thumbnails:

Left - a not very clear use of the foam. The foam stick worked great, and lasted all day. It reduced by a huge amount the water that had to be put on the fire to extinguish a part of it.

Middle - a pecan tree that was too close - we kept a spray on it periodically to prevent damage. This is a common tactic for protecting all sorts of things that might be close to a large fire.

Right - more use of fog to cool things off on an approach. Fog isn't always what you want to use on a fire but it does keep you from getting radiation burns!



And a last couple of gratuitous images. There are a lot more photos, and they're all very good. Most are probably of internal interest and I'll probably set up a separate page of them. In which case I'll post a notification and email any of interest.



By 3pm we were pretty tired and none of our fellows who didn't make it to the event had brought us any food. (In fairness, one of our rabbit-hunting American Hero fellows did try to call to offer, but reception in the area was apparently nonexistent and phones went unanswered.) And we still had to disconnect and roll up thirteen lengths of hose, drain and disassemble three drop tanks, and make sure the remains of the fire were contained! Not to mention carting everything back into the station. We did finish up by 5:30pm though, and in the end thought it a very successful day training. I'm not sure we want to do this once a month but it's definitely something that should be done occasionally. As Fire Chief Ed said, it's what you'd have to do for a long fire call, and nothing in an evening training of a coupla hours prepares you for it.

--Wayne

Farewell Mike

Last post I mentioned that we had a board, but that some changes were in the offing. And at our last business meeting Jan 3, we had a quorum and voted to cement those changes.

We've been aware that our Fire Chief, Mike Geraci, was going to be leaving at some point, and that point came much too soon for all of us. He and Jackie will be leaving (in winter!) for the snowy wilds of Michigan, this week.

Assistant Fire Chief Ed Frey automatically moved to Fire Chief for all of five minutes after the announcement and then we made sure he stayed Fire Chief by vote. The new Assistant Fire Chief and Training Officer was also elected. He prefers to not have an internet presence and so we respectfully do not name him here.

And so you have outgoing Chief Mike (previously 401, now 410) on the left, and incoming Chief Ed on the right (now 401), filling the drop tanks behind our very fine tanker, on Saturday.



Mike and the aforementioned anonymous individual joined us just about two years ago, after attending our Dec 2005 Christmas Party, where they were quickly snapped up. Mike already had considerable Navy experience, and along with the aforementioned anonymous individual, immediately took the Mod 1 training for a week in Forsyth.

Both have an impressive array of practical and mechanical expertise. Mike will be known for that, which increased our repertoire of capability enormously over the last year. He'll also be known for increasing our training sessions from an inadequate one Thursday a month to at least all but one Thursday a month, something that has been important in keeping us comfortable and able to do what we do. This wasn't something that was met with a groan - we needed it and welcomed it, and it's made all the difference in the world.

We're going to miss him and Jackie for their dedication, fine barbecue, and impromptu get-togethers. We wish them the best and envy the community they're certainly going to quickly become a part of in Michigan.

We're lucky to have as our new chief Ed Frey, longtime firefighter for Wolfskin (and this year's Firefighter of the Year!).