Tiny's Tantalizing Text

Now that I have your attention, yesterday my local Fire Department did a live fire drill at the local Elementary/Middle School, partially for training, and partially for showing off in front of the kids.

We met at the firs station at 12:30 so everybody could get their gear on and sort of go over a plan of attack so nobody would get hurt. At 12:58, the Chief had the Comm. Center page us out for the drill, and we took off, lights flashing and sirens blaring. The kids were on the playground, corralled by their teachers, just as they were supposed to be.

We sent one truck into the alley on the North side of the building, another around to the South Doors, with our newest truck being positioned by the West (front) doors, along with our EMS unit. From there, since it was only a drill/demonstration, we ran the booster reel hoses into the building. After a few minutes, we were informed (all part of the drill) that the custodian was unaccounted for, so a couple of guys got into the air packs, and took the "stokes" basket in, located him, and drug him out. Also, since we had simulated smoke (dry ice going to room temperature) we ran ventilation fans.

To my knowledge, the only thing we did wrong (in fact, didn't do at all) was our new County Wide Firefighter Accountability System. Everybody has a set of 4 plastic tags affixed to the bottom rim of their helmet with velcro. On the way to the scene, each firefighter is supposed to get 2 of their tags affixed to boards in the front of the truck, once at the scene, one board stays in the truck, the other is handed to either the Incident Commander or the Safety Officer on scene. Tag number 3 is put on another board in the case of an interior attack or search mission. The fourth tag stays with the helmet as an identifier. In a perfect world, we really wouldn't need to do this, but you know as well as I do, that we don't live in a perfect world. Some day, our lack of attention to detail could bite us in the butt.