Flaming June!

It’s hard to believe that this time last year we were in a heatwave, looking out there at a damp and dull morning in South Devon, but, this time last year was stunning, and true to it’s nickname, it was a ‘flaming June’ in more ways than one.

June brought with it my first ‘double shout day.’ I’ve had many since, but both of these were long and trying.

The first was an Incident Command Unit (ICU) shout to a large garage/workshop fire in Torquay.

 Totnes is an ICU Station, so we get to go out a lot further than our boundaries more because of this. CM Hodge was in charge of the ICU, and I was under the watchful eye of ‘Rabbit’ inside the unit, learning on the job how to write the decision log and also communicate radio messages to control.

Totnes prides itself on how well we operate the unit, and I could see why, everything ran smoothly,both inside and outside, and even though I wasn’t there fighting fires, the job we do with the ICU is so important, and Rabbit was a good teacher.

CM Hodge gave me an extremely long radio message to send to control, and I was congratulated after sending it without a hitch. The support from your team mates in the fire service is unlike any I’ve ever had whilst working, encouragement and praise are always there, the same also goes when you mess up, but that’s essential for self-improvement, so you don’t make those mistakes again!

We were out for around six hours in total, which basically meant that I had absolutely no sleep that night, and a matter of hours later, the beeper went again.

This was by far, the hottest day of the year, it’s not the kind of day you want to be outside in full sun in full fire PPE, but there you go, you make our choices!

 I cycled down to the station and off we went to a property out in the countryside that had an extremely out of hand bonfire! Now, what else would you do on the hottest day of the year, but have a bonfire, right? Wrong! I guess that’s why we do what we do, because not everyone makes the right decisions at the right times.

I was with Harvey, we are both at a similar stage in development, so there were a couple of firsts for us, using beaters to help control fire spread, and using work restraint equipment, due to the nature of the landscape.

We had Simon (Harvey’s mentor) and Raif with us, who shared their knowledge and experience. Every day, every shout we learn more.

A lot of water was drunk that afternoon, and I slept like a baby that night, but there was more to come, the summer of 2018 was a busy one!