The Month of February

Fire Calls:

2010 has been busy from the very beginning. Counting a Dec 30 2009 call for a chimney fire we've had eight calls. Just a few days left in February, and so maybe this is a premature summary especially since we have red-flag days today and tomorrow. Still, here are the four fire calls we've had in February.

Feb 4 brought a call to our own area of Wolfskin Road and Hutchins-Wolfskin Road - a vehicle overturn. The pumper was en route when the call was canceled - the vehicle occupants had apparently righted the car and fled the scene.

Feb 6, just after midnight, we were paged for a structure fire in downtown Arnoldsville. This was a multidepartmental event for a house fire. While there was damage, the house was saved. Five departments, including ours, were involved here, and we got home around 3am.

Feb 14 brought a mid midmorning brush fire off Old Edwards Road. The pumper was canceled en route when the initial blaze was determined to be much less than it initially appeared, and was brought under control.

Feb 21 brought a midmorning page, late in the event, for water for a structure fire north of Crawford. We had the tanker near the scene when the call was cancelled. Sounded like at least nine or ten departments were called.

Training:

We had three training meetings in February. You can always get details from the WVFD Training and Meetings links on the right sidebar - here are the ones for 2010, so far.

We've been working on hoselays for the pumper, and established a reverse lay of about 550 feet of 3" hose on the pumper bed. The Feb 11 training involved discussion of the Feb 6 structure fire, and the annual inspection by GFS&T, which we easily passed. The last training meeting got us back into nursing operations from tanker to pumper. We also hefted charged 3" hoses for attack, and solved a problem with the tanker panel controls.

Here's something important for any of us who are going to drive and operate the tanker:

The tanker has a vacuum/pressure pump, which we use mainly in the vacuum mode for drafting. For pressure, we use the fire pump addition that then Fire Chief Phyllis Jackson had the foresight to have added to the tanker. Last Thursday, we were puzzled at being unable to increase pressure at the fire pump panel using the new fangled pressure pad digital controls. The solution was to turn off the fire pump, shut down the electrical system at the battery switch, wait a few seconds, then turn everything back on. A reboot of the system was apparently required. Everything worked fine then. It's the equivalent of pulling the plug, and letting the digitals sort themselves out.

We've had ongoing tests of our handheld radio communications on our Wolfskin channel. A number of radio batteries (lithium ion) are 4-6 years old, and only hold a charge for 30 hours or so, at rest. Newer batteries hold charge for a week or so. We've established that we can hear each other within a couple of miles from inside homes, and used this capability effectively several times, during the Feb 14 brush fire, for instance. At one point one of us was able to relay a message to another who could not hear the original message.

And aside from some fairly significant departmental business that others can write about, that seems to be what's been going on in February.