Today I’ve been in the woods with my FIG at a Civil Defence exercise. And I guess it couldn’t have gone much better.
We started out at 9 at Grorud where the base of Civil Defences in Oslo and Akershus are based. As we arrived we were directed directly to the depot to get new boots. I’ve been looking forward to testing the new boots and after a day of walking, running , splashing in water and carrying stuff I’m very pleased.
The new boots have a good fit, are soft and flexible and not to heavy. Yet they offer good support for you ankles and cot a composite “steel cap” to protect your toes. And they’re gortex. Which at least initially is a good idea, we’ll just have to see how well it works after a few years of abuse 🙂
Then we had some time getting to know some of the new members that has joined the group and to re familiarize our selves with the fire fighting equipment that we got on our car. We opened a manhole, went down and attached a valve to the hydrant and the a 2.5″ hose to get the water out of the hole. And then everyone took turns going down or practising the attaching of the valve in a training rig.
Then we went to Steinbruvannet, a little lake just a few minutes from the base. We started by getting out what we needed for the exercise from our own car and from a larger truck. And we finally have some useful equipment to the ATV that we have. They now got a small trailer for it, big enough for one fire pump (Ziegler Ultra Power) and some hoses and other equipment that you would need. This is great since the ATV can get to places where out ordinary truck cannot go. Which means less carrying for us 😀 Which is good considering the pump weights around 190 kilos.
Then we split the group in two and have a hose connection relay race. We started out by laying out a 4″ hose (25 m) and then a branch pipe, which reduces the 4″ to 3 x 2.5″ from there we had one 2.5″ hose (25 m) to a new smaller branch pipe which is split into two 1.5″ connectors, and then finally one length of 1.5″ hose (20 m) and a nozzle at the end. Then each team member had to start by attaching the hose to the pipe then running to the next connection and do that up and so one all the way to the top, of course the track ran up hills, and then on the way back down he/she would disconnect all the connections again preparing for the next in the relay.
Out group was one short so in the heat of the moment I decided to take a second run in the end just to be fair. But the few seconds of hesitation caused us victory. Shit happens 😀
After that we did some drills on how the pump works, starting stopping, running on full auto and we simulated a feed hose breaking to see how the pump reacts and what to do when this happens. And i guess that when we are in the woods pumping like mad that will happen from time to time.
The last part of the exercise was to lay out a standard fire fighting hose arrangement to see how it works and how well we can wet the bushes and threes. One pump can pump around 2000 l each minute and the nozzles will handle about 500 l each so a standard layout have three nozzles connected to one pump. Then we have something in backup if we need it.
All of this in brilliant sunny weather, couldn’t have been any better 😀
But now it’s time for bed, tomorrow is going to be a long day to.
Up early to play and the Susan will arrive later to spend the weekend in Oslo.
Be First to Comment