Wolfskin Volunteer Fire Department
Oglethorpe County, Northeast Georgia
Peace in Wolfskin

wolfskinvfd@yahoo.com


Mark Your Wolfskin VFD Calendar!
Send additions, corrections, etc. to wayne@sparkleberrysprings.com.
Please note that as of the beginning of 2015, Wayne's descriptions of training are accurate, but not official. For the official reports along with attendance please contact the new
Assistant Chief and Training Officer, Charleen Foott (foott@att.net).


May 2015

May 5: (Tue 7:00pm): First Tuesday Oglethorpe Firefighters Association meeting (Farm Bureau Office in Crawford).

May 7: (Thu 6:30pm): First Thursday Business Meeting.

May 14: (Thu 6:30pm): Second Thursday Training Meeting. Discussed response responsibilities and tactics, esp in terms of going directly to scene or station, eventually decided should go to station first except: two others have indicated they're headed there; and take a look at scene but only if on way or out of way by less than 1 minutes round trip. No more than 1 minute to check out scene. Also exemption for repeated false alarms from same residence over short period of time. Strongly suggested using number of fire depts called as indicator of potential seriousness.

May 16-17: (Sat/Sun): Firefighter Weekend. Charleen and Glenn left 5:30am on Saturday and returned 6:03pm on Sunday evening. Each took a 16-hour course. CF: Training Operations in Small Departments: This course is designed to provide students with some basic tools and skills to coordinate training in a small fire/EMS organization. A training function in a smaller department typically may include conducting training drills and coordinating training with a nearby larger city or state training function. Exam: Passed. GG: Principles and Practice of Command: This course will present principles and foundations for maintaining a command presence during emergency incidents. In addition, sie ujp, tactics, strategies, and effective communications will be discussed. No exam.

May 21: (Thu 6:30pm): Third Thursday Training Meeting. Thermal Imager was charged while pumper was run for 1 hour. Practiced using booster hose, PTO, and pump.

May 28: (Thu 6:30pm): Fourth Thursday Training Meeting. Chainsaw training: TM and MP went over prepping chainsaw with gas mix and oil, chain blade tightness, starting and safety measures, and fundamentals of cutting up medium diameter trees. (Phyllis arrived and took photos for newsletter, 30 minutes.)


June 2015

Jun 2: (Tue 7:00pm): First Tuesday Oglethorpe Firefighters Association meeting (Farm Bureau Office in Crawford).

NOTE: Jun 3: (Wed 6:30pm): Business Meeting. Changed to Wed night Jun 3 because of unexpected difficulties with attendance on Thu Jun 4 by several members. Sorry! This happens very infrequently.

Jun 6: (Sat 9:00am): County wide training - Search and Rescue. 1096 Elberton Road. See OCFFA Description for details and contact info.

NOTE: Jun 11: (Thu 6:30pm): NOTE: Postponed to 6:30pm Friday Jun 12. Second Thursday Training Meeting. We'll be looking over SalemVFD's brush truck. Sorry about the late notification.

Jun 18: (Thu 6:30pm): Third Thursday Training Meeting.

Jun 25: (Thu 6:30pm): Fourth Thursday Training Meeting.


July 2015

Jul 2: (Thu 6:30pm): First Thursday Business Meeting.


Monday, January 15, 2007

Firefighter Weekend

Firefighter Weekend is March 23-25 in Forsyth, Georgia. Ed has sent the list of courses available. Call him to register and for more information: 706-546-5539.

Structure Fire Control will be offered each of the 3 days
Pressurized Container Fire Control on Sat. (24th) & Sun. (25th).

Other courses available (some 8 hrs., some 16) are:

GA. Fire Incident Reporting System (GFIRS) (16 hrs)
Handling Flammable & Combustible Liquid Incidents (16)
Haz Mat Annual Refresher (8)
Incident Safety Officer (16)
Pressurized Water Systems & Supplies (8)
Pump Service Testing (8)

Friday, January 12, 2007

Second Thursday Training

There were only four of us, but we had a rollickin good time.

A personal aside - I'd brought a couple of printouts of some presumptive white oaks that have extremely scaly bark. Our hydrant man (see below) is quite a good tree botanist so I thought to challenge him on whether these were really white oaks, or a population of two other rather rare related species. We didn't come to a conclusion, but it serves as an example of something or other.

But white oaks aren't why you're here!

Last night, we played mostly with the lime green truck, the Margaritaville, engaging the drive transmission into the pump and getting the three main steps to success just right. Yes, it was cold but the PPEs are warm and this is the best time of year to be wearing them.

The new nozzles - and aren't they nice? - arrived and we had quite a fine evening checking them out. We got both trucks out and yanked out a bunch of hose and sprayed a lot of water. The new nozzles have two twist controls - one for character and one for volume - and they're a hard rubber star wars blaster kind of thing. Everyone who picked one up was inexorably drawn to pointing it at someone else and saying, "pow". Cool.

Of course we must top off the trucks after expending water, so we went up to the county line to fill the truck with water from their hydrant. With the Margaritaville, we do it the easy way. Rather than intravenous injection of water from the hydrant, a couple of us sit on top of the truck holding on tightly to the connected hose and direct the flowing water directly into the tank. This affords the other two of us with the opportunity for fun, as our all-too-clever hydrant man schemes: "Und now, ve turn zis up all ze way und ve launch zem into space!"

There was brief discussion to end any confusion that training sessions are the second and third Thursdays (they are), but our eclectic hydrant man mentioned above asserted that he'd be just as happy if we had a FOURTH Thursday training session.

Well, now, that's an interesting idea. Of course, you have to be very careful with the hydrant man - not only is he a good tree botanist, he's also a cunning trickster. But still, it needn't be a full fledged training session; we could think of it as a short maintenance session. Start up and run the trucks for a few minutes to keep batteries charged and the trucks certain of their places in our hearts. Meanwhile do a little chatting (that's where most of the planning and exchanges get done anyway), and come and go as we please. Sounds like a good idea to me. Ed? Mike?

--Wayne