Saturday, January 26, 2019

Breathing Apparatus (BA) training - part two


January 27th 2018 – diary entry.

‘Bill picked me up. A day of highs and lows. I messed up a lot today and I’m so annoyed with myself.’

You’ve seen this journey expand if you’ve read the other blogs. BA School is tough; it has to be tough to prepare you for what is to come. The time to mess up is in training, but you have to learn from it, and fast, any continued mistakes mean you fail, and failure is not an option to me, all through my life I have strived to be the best that I can be.

So we are back at Exeter BA School for day 6 of 10. We had a lot more BA wears, more servicing of sets, more experience of fire behaviour and environment and I didn’t have the best of days.
Following a search, I missed the stairs, a ridiculous rookie mistake, but one that haunted me all week. I then had issues with radios, another issue that would haunt me all week, mainly because of the general mickey-taking that some of the guys gave me. Don’t worry, it was all done in jest, and I got my own back eventually!

Back home that evening I tried to relax, I went over my notes, went over the mistakes I had made in my head, mentally beat myself up a bit and decided that tomorrow was a new day and tried to move on. 

Day 7 and it was a better day for me.
I can’t tell you a lot about what we did that day, as it would spoil it for those of you going through the process of being an On Call Firefighter, but we did an amazing exercise, I was the BAECO (Breathing Apparatus Entry Control Officer) and I really like doing that, recording and keeping a check on information. My radio skills picked up again that day and as a team, we all did really well.
A very different finish and feeling to the day than the previous.

Day 8, we did an exercise in the Cold Villa, and also learnt all about Positive Pressure Ventilation (PPV) which as really interesting. It has many uses, but can ease working conditions for Firefighters, give better visibility, safety and comfort.
We learnt Firefighting branch techniques, had lots of practise with them before going into the Attack 2 container. This was the last thing we did that day, and we over-ran slightly, which meant when I got back to Totnes I had to go straight to the sports centre to take my Insanity class. All we could smell for the 50 minute session was smoke, as I sweated it out into the room! Luckily they all found it funny! That’s the thing about being an On Call Firefighter, sometimes our ‘Day jobs’ are affected by what we do, always allow enough time for a shower!

Day 9, and they are ramping up the work more and more, giving us more kit, more work, harder targets to achieve and we did a great exercise in steam. I was feeling confident, we all did some great work and we finished the day with the Attack 3 container. All preparations for tomorrow and the big assessment.

The big day!
We had our written exam in the morning, seemed to go okay, lunch and then our practical assessment.
I got to do my assessment with Joey (Tavistock) and it was tough. We ended up putting the same fire out three times, we would shut the door after painting it down, the assessors would open the door again and send us back to it.
Joey was awesome, I was less awesome, I made a few minor errors that were explained to me afterwards, but we passed, all of us passed, both written and practical. We were on the run properly, time to remove the red diamonds from our helmets and be an active part of the crew. Another part of the journey had begun.


Sunday, January 6, 2019

Breathing Apparatus (BA) training - part one.



Here’s some wisdom from a senior member of the team at Totnes, we were discussing the whole process just this morning, of becoming a Firefighter. He said that, you don’t apply to work at Tesco’s, and a year later almost be qualified for the job.
The difference between what they do in a supermarket and what we do, however, is very different. In some circumstances in our job, it could be a matter of life and death, which is why the training is so intense, and this course, is so important to get right for that very reason.


On 6th January 2018 I met up with 'Billiam' from our initial courses, we did a lift share and made our way up to Exeter Airport together, where the ten days training would be.
On arrival we saw the rest of the team, with the exception of one, we had lost Johnny. He had a serious knee injury from playing football and so wouldn’t be doing the rest of the training with us. We were now down to ten.

Day one was tough; there was a lot of classroom input, after being introduced to our Instructors, Simon and Scott. We went through the Breathing Apparatus sets, learning what each part is for, how to check it, clean it and prepare it for use again.

 The other part of the day was to get us used to wearing the sets, and putting our trust in them. We did an exercise wearing the BA sets, of trying to ‘out-breathe’ it. Walking, carrying, and lifting, continuously with different objects of shapes and sizes, knowing that however hard you puffed and panted that cylinder would supply with you as much air as you needed to do the task.
It was interesting, having never worn anything like it before, to know that you could put your full trust in a cylinder full of air, and it wouldn’t let you down.
 Day one was an amazing insight, and the rest of the week would be even more eye-opening for us all.

Day two and who would have thought that dance lessons were included in training? We learnt what is called ‘The BA Shuffle!’ In all seriousness though, the moves involved in this are to keep us safe, and help us to find casualties in smoke-filled environments, where visibility is seriously reduced. Foot sweeps and sweeping hand movements, all timed together to make the very best Firefighters.
 We found it amusing when we were all in a lit corridor, waving our arms and legs about at each other, but the next time we were doing it, we were in a smoke-logged villa, trying to locate a ‘dummy’ casualty. You realised just how useful those moves are to find your way.

The cold villa exercise was great, we hadn’t got anywhere near fire and heat at this point, that would come when we were all safe at the basics. 

Days three and four we had more thrown at us and added in, little extras each time, the addition of radios, fire-fighting equipment, more casualties to locate, just a little at a time.


Day four we learnt about ‘Flashover’ and ‘Backdraught’ nothing like the film, and fascinating to learn about. Fire is definitely something to respect, and by the end of the day we had been sat in a ‘hot box’ watching an actual Flashover happen before our eyes. We were all sat there gobsmacked at what we were seeing, almost text book from what we had learnt that morning in the classroom.

The final day of the first week, we did a guideline exercise in the hot villa, and we got to use branch techniques in an attack container. We left that day on a massive high, we couldn’t wait to come back and do more in a couple of weeks’ time.