Alistair Baillie

Fire Fighting day 2 consisted of a very long lecture about the different types of fire extinguishers, what classes of fire we have (A: Carbon based, B: Liquids, C: Gas, D: Metals and F: Cooking oils – notice that there is no class E and that electrical is not a class of fire, its merely a complication).

We then went onto a demonstration on how breathing apparatus (SCBA), the correct procedures for conducting a search in a smoke filled room, door and hatch entry procedures – after which we all got a chance to try using the SCBA kit.

The afternoon was taken up by a summary of the mornings topics and then we were told about the fire fighting equipment onboard ships and shown a video about fire fighting on a ship.

Day 3 was our practical day where we all got to dress up as firemen/firewomen and play with extinguishers and hoses in the morning, as well as getting taken through the mock up of a giant ship they have here to show us where we’re going when we enter for the big practical in the afternoon.

We then entered the training building in our teams of 3/4 wearing SCBA in complete darkness (without smoke or fire) and proceeded to make our way safely around the building, up a ladder conduct a search of the room and then out through a door and then back down onto the ground.

After lunch the big exercise started which involved rescuing a casualty from a cabin on deck 2, and then descending down a hatch to deck 1 and extinguishing a fire in the room at the bottom of the ladder.

It was HOT, and you really couldn’t see much when we went in. We proceeded to make our way around the training building, and searched the two cabins (almost missing the second one where the casualty was), we then got the casualty out, and proceeded to a deck hatch, where after checking the temperature, cooled the hatch and ladder with the hose and proceeded to climb down to the room where the fire was. We carried out (rather unsuccessfully as we created lots of steam) some short sharp bursts on the fire and then proceeded to leave through a hatch back out into the daylight.

I then had a shower, and my boiler suite was soaking with sweat! Before going outside and drinking plenty of water and on a final note my shoulders are killing me after carrying the air cylinder for so long, I am going to be in pain tomorrow, I keep trying to not stop moving – so far rather unsuccessfully.

All of us passed the course and we now have our first certificate from the STCW-95 short courses 🙂 Tomorrow we get to play around in a pool practicing abandon ship procedures, so until then, goodnight!

Oh, in case you haven’t noticed, several others here at Warsash have their own blogs if anyone is interested in reading them. The links are in the “About Me” section of the web site.