An Evening at Lake Oglethorpe

Continuing the backlog of photographed events at Wolfskin, a valuable training session from June.

This training session actually occurred on Thursday June 14, but it overlaps in some ways with last night's training so it fits reasonably well. The photographs are some of many taken by our civilian board member, Jerry Ledbetter, and many thanks to him for documenting the event.

A little history: When previous Fire Chief Phyllis Jackson began to revive the Wolfskin Volunteer Fire Department five or so years ago, she called on old 1990s members (such as Glenn and me) to return. The monthly schedule was as before - First Thursday of the month, business meeting and Third Thursday of the month, training session. Years passed, Phyllis wore herself out writing grant proposals and obtaining equipment and by Mar 2006 that culminated in the receipt of a magnificent tanker, which you will see here, once again. And then Mike (who became fire chief at the end of last year) and The Unknown Firefighter joined us, took the Mod 1 training course early last year, and applied their considerable hardware and management skills. Our training sessions increased to a "supplemental" Second Thursday. After a couple of months, TUF said the *he* wouldn't mind a Fourth Thursday, I immediately concurred, and so it was that early this year *every* Thursday (except the First, which is still business) became training.

It's hard to point to any one thing that transformed the fire department from something just barely functional at the beginning of the new millenium to something that is now quite healthy and competent. There have been many changes and much work by Phyllis and others in that time. But the movement to training every week must certainly be among those items, and our training officers Ed and TUF, and Mike, come up with amazingly inventive and valuable training ideas.

One of the goals that Phyllis envisioned was to hone our skills at utilizing stream and lake water sources to fortify those swimming pools we call drop tanks. We do have access to several Clarke County hydrants that happen to be on the border of our counties, but we need to be able to draft from other sources, and the last few training sessions have revolved around that.

To orient you, here's a map of our general area. The last few Thursdays have been to develop tactics at utilizing Lake Oglethorpe, a 30-year-old artificial, monomictic lake created in the early 70s by damming Goulding Creek, about a mile upstream from us (orange box). There are two routes (green), one a longer circuitous one (Route A, through the Lake Oglethorpe neighborhood) that we used in training that resulted in the photos below. (A coupla weeks later we investigated Route B, the Wolfskin Road side of the dam, last night, but for various reasons (especially drafting from a vertical height of 15 feet above the lake) it will probably remain an emergency solution.)


Jumping a little ahead, we're already set up here at the edge of the lake on one side of the dam, which moves off to the middle right in the photograph. We're drafting from the edge of the lake into the tanker through that six-inch hose. A three-inch hose is being used to simultaneously deliver water to the monitor. That's a heavy piece of metal that operates from the ground, and can deliver a stream at 1000 gallons per minute quite some distance.


The thumbnails below open a larger version, on a new page. On the left we have R2D2, our strainer that pulls water as long as it's a few inches deep, at least. On the right we have not one but *two* drop tanks that we connected together in an experimental setup so we could have twice the amount of water with greater access for additional trucks.



Here's the setup after we got everything into place. The new tanker is the big red truck, and the lemon yellow "Margaritaville" is the old pumper. While the Margaritaville does have power steering, it lacks the digital bells and whistles of the tanker and is therefore a more MANLY truck. (The knocker of course, is the most manly truck of all.)


A few more views of the setup, and in operation. The first thumbnail is actually an early photograph setting up the droptanks and connecting them together. In the second the Margaritaville has been moved into place, and in the third it is pulling water from the droptanks and pumping it in a fog stream. (The fog stream is very neat - it results in a strong backdraft of air that is cooling and pleasant on a hot evening like this one was.)


The nozzle can also be operated as a straight stream of course, and Wolfskin 411 (me) is doing so here in the first thumbnail.

There's plenty of time to botanize, and The Unknown Firefighter found a nice deep blue mint that Wolfskin 418 (Glenn) and I are discussing while supposedly on backup. Our numbers, by the way, are 400 numbers, as Wolfskin VFD is designated by Oglethorpe County. Another fire department might be 600 series, and another might be 300 series. So you always know who you are. I myself was pleased to receive 411.


Just because we've finished at this site doesn't mean everything's over. We still have an hour or more to clean and roll up hoses, drain and put away the drop tanks, and generally retrieve and put away gear. And then the trucks have to be refilled and themselves put to bed.

Here's the *other* side of the dam, with the overflow pipe draining into the resumption of Goulding Creek. That water will eventually flow past our part of Goulding Creek a mile and more downstream.


--Wayne