Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Next Stop... the Orient(ation)

Well, over the last few days we 8 Polies worked our way through the numerous drills and presentations from the kind souls at fire school. Today we had a refresher/review lecture in the morning and an introduction to the use of tools to perform a forced entry through a locked door. After lunch, we ran a number of scenarios responding to a fire in the burn building (with real fire, none of that imitation stuff), including search and rescue for a patient inside. I think people were having a good time, and certainly learned a lot over the last five days. I still don't know anything about whether or not I'll be the fire brigade lead, but at least I've gotten a good refresher if I am. Credits for the photo to whichever of my teammates took the photo:

So, up next is a couple days of orientation at my employer's headquarters, and then we're off to start the big marathon of flights way west and way south. Yesterday evening I got my email about where I'll be staying in Cheech, so that whole leg of the trip is now in place. I guess some of the flights from Cheech to McMurdo have been backing up, so I'm not sure when I'll be making that flight. Anyhow, it feels good to have this bunch of training completed. I wish I could have had 2 weeks of fire training, but I'll take what I can get.

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
~Bertrand Russell

3 comments:

Becky said...

Have fun in Cheech! And here's hoping you never need to use that fire training whilst on the Ice. Perhaps you can go out with the fire team at McMurdo while you wait for the weather to clear so you can get to the Pole.

EthanG said...

McM FD will likely have some training for us as well, which will be good. I'm definitely ready to hit CHC!

J. Reaves said...

That was me, what's took the picture. Just found your blog and am enjoying it. You are right, most of us enjoyed the fire training, but it was sometimes hard work!

James (aka Chuck)