Helicopter Day

Thursday night WVFD did our third training session with the good folks at Oconee County Volunteer Fire Department:


Oconee County is Oglethorpe's sister county to the southwest, one of five counties that surround Athens-Clarke County. Over the years they've been extraordinarily good to our little VFD, passing on used (sometimes barely used) equipment and turnout gear back in the days not so long ago when we didn't have anything.

You'll notice the "Station 1" in the photo above. OCFD has *eight* stations throughout the county. Its overall fire chief is Bruce Thaxton, who has gone out of his way to welcome and involve us each time we've joined them. (Station 1, btw, is a really fine and well-appointed one.)

Thursday night was helicopter air lift and rescue. We weren't sure exactly what to expect and arrived with our bags of PPE thinking it might be hands-on training. It wasn't, but that's ok. We had our hands on in the great chicken truck turnover last May.

Helicopters are so cool.


The demonstration was put on by Omniflight, which acquired Air Rescue 1 recently, if I understand correctly. It's a company that provides mutual aid to emergency medical services and fire departments. They themselves have a number of stations located strategically all over the northern half of Georgia such that they can provide an arrival time for trauma cases within an hour, and usually in half that time. Within another hour or less a case will have been delivered to an appropriate trauma center. When it's all said and done, in most airlift cases the cost and time of rescue, transport, and delivery will be less to the patient than if he or she had been carried by more conventional ground transport. And it's becoming much more common to use air transport. Air transport has become much more available, the definition of trauma is surprisingly broad now, and there are more and more trauma centers.

So you can probably tell that most of the training was in listening, and not so much in doing. The focus was in the background above, and then in safety procedures when working around a rescue helicopter. Unlike in the photos linked by the thumbnails below, the helicopter on the ground is almost always engaged with both rotors in motion.

Among the things we learned:

Fire fighters are going to bring their families to something like this. Lots of kids, wives (or husbands!), all excited and having a good time.

I mentioned that trauma is increasingly broadly defined: Heart attack. Stroke. Blood pressure or pulse above or below a certain point, regardless of injury.

All they need are coordinates provided by GPS. Many cell phones now give GPS coordinates. Maybe it's a good time to learn how to use yours - might as well put the evil things to good use ;-) .

The helicopter requires only 100 feet square in order to land, less in the daytime. This one landed in the parking lot next to the station, about 60 feet from the building.

Never move behind a line defined by the rear of the landing strut. Tail rotor and engine exhaust!

Always approach a helicopter from the front, never the sides and certainly never the rear.

The rotating blades are going to suck up any loose material. Including headgear and sheets on gurneys. That will put the helicopter out of commission and it will not leave.

Patients always go onto the stretcher feet toward the front.

These helicopters are sleek and small, yet there will be four people inside, including the patient.

Helicopters cannot see power lines from the ground. All they can see are the round tops of the power poles, and maybe a crossbar if there is one.

They won't airlift anyone who weighs much over 300 pounds.

And the thumbnails. If you look at the first one, you'll see black dots all over the image. That's not a dirty camera lens, it's flying debris. I guess that's something else we learned.

Oh - and the takeoff after the demo was delayed. A storm had moved in, with some spectacular lightning, just before they were ready to leave. They powered down and the pilot went inside the building to check the internets to see what to expect in the next few minutes.


--Wayne

Brush Fire, 10 August

May you live in interesting times!

This was the setting at 3pm yesterday when we got the pageout along with all other 13 VFDs in Oglethorpe County. Extensive brush fire near Vesta, everyone come to the party! BYOW! Well, we've got lots of W, 2500 gallons of it. I got to the station first this time, and had the tanker out and running. I was just locking everything up when Ed and Scott arrived, and off we went.

I wish I had taken the camera, now. It was indeed extensive, burning most of the length along the north side of Veribest Enterprise Road in northeast Oglethorpe County, and deep into the woods. That part of the county is probably 15 miles northeast of us, and the most distant fire we've been to so far.

We turned onto V-E Road and were directed all the way down to the other end, at the cemetary, where Vesta VFD had set up Incident Command for the VFDs. Lisa was already there, and had been for some time, running water up and down the road for rehab. The IC from Vesta directed us to pull up behind that li'l white truck there, and sit tight, after informing us of the location of the nearest hydrant (three miles away!). Andy arrived shortly after we got there, and The Unknown Firefighter was on his way.

At this point Georgia Forestry Commission had the fire mainly under control, and our role, as well as that of the other VFDs, was support if needed. We were there to provide water, and indeed did fill up one truck. Most of the other pumpers and knockers were targetted to houses in the area to protect them if necessary.

And then along about 7pm we were released and back home we went, stopping along the way to top off the tank and get gas.

A few observations:

We have *got* to get the Wolfskin name on the trucks!

I don't know when or how the fire started. The burn was so extensive it must have been involved for a considerable period of time. The part we could see looked basically like the results of a controlled burn - groundcover burned off but trees generally unharmed. (I'm not saying that that was the cause, but that the aftermath was what I've seen after controlled burns.)

As far as I can tell there was at least one truck from every VFD in the county. Plus EMS, Sheriff, and GA Forestry crew. Yet traffic along the road was well controlled and nondisruptive.

GA Forestry is superb. They had a spotter plane circling over all afternoon, presumably providing observations to the ground.

Residents of the area continually moved up and down the road offering water. Finally, a legitimate use for ATVs: water delivery. At less extensive fires there is normally a rehab station (and there probably was one here too), but in this case rehab came to us at regular intervals.

Apparently the fire was significant enough to have made the news earlier. One of us had actually heard about it on the radio and not his pager, and dropped by just as we were leaving the station.

The fire could have been much, much worse, given our past week of elevated temperatures and lack of rain since late July. There could have been wind. I'd have to attribute successful control to what I saw as very well-coordinated and competent firefighting. Coordination among 14 VFDs and Forestry is not necessarily an easy thing! Vesta VFD's Wayne Wallace did a great job.

Apparently no one got hurt, and it is possible to function at 107 degF!

*****I don't do this very often, because it seems unseemly to me, but occasionally I like to point out that every time we train or go out on a call we think about our Wolfskin neighbors who have generously supported us. On a day like yesterday, it's worth noting that every firefighter's eyes track that supertanker when it goes past. I'm not kidding you one bit. And it's not very often that we don't have a number of folks asking questions about it. WVFD has periodically been paged specifically for that supertanker, with its 2500 gallons of water. It is quite a resource, and the only one of its kind in the Oglethorpe County, so far! So once again, and I think I speak for my fellows, thanks to the Wolfskin residents for supporting us the way you have. We're very proud of you. ******

--Wayne

Extremely High Temperatures in Wolfskin

That is yesterday's high here in Wolfskin, and it is to remind you that we are experiencing extremely high temperatures, and that without rain in the last few weeks things are a mite combustible. Yesterday's high in Wolfskin was 105.8 degF, and today is expected to be hotter. Today will be the fourth consecutive day of 110-year reoord breaking temperatures, and tomorrow will almost certainly be the fifth such day.

We discussed these matters and more at training, where, by the way one of our crew related that at least one 50-foot bored well in the area has gone dry. Elsewhere I predicted this, based on noting that our small creek at the 600-foot elevation level has run dry along half its length for the first time in 22 years.

Last night's pageout for the training came at 5:30pm, and although I didn't monitor 911 pageouts as scrupulously as usual, did note that there were no pageouts for training for the other fire departments in the county - usually there are half a dozen such. So the four of us were smug about that, with references to mad dogs, Englishmen, and Wolfskin.

Training was light, though. We pulled out the supertanker and tested out our new 3000 gallon drop tank, filling it with a full tank of water. The Unknown Firefighter disappeared briefly, and then returned in shorts with an air mattress and paddled around in the pool for a half hour or so. It is entirely appropriate for him to have anointed the much larger tank, since he did the lion's share of the work in acquiring it, to replace the somewhat damaged 2500 gallon one that we received when the truck arrived in 2006.

Note: water in tanker no longer potable ;-) .

--Wayne