More complicated than an 8th grade field trip; did everyone remember to bring their permission slips?
Now is the week when we do some real burns. Our Class A building yesterday was at the Loudoun County, VA Fire/Rescue Training Facility (a fun flashback from the past: my first EMT training was at the same facility, and yesterday was the first time I'd been back to it in almost six years. The upper/adminstrative building was essentially unchanged, but they had since built a new burn building over their expansive training compound.)
Each engine company was assigned an instructor to go into the building, and we spent our day rotating through the various rooms that were filled with pallets and hay.
I heard that some of the rooms were pretty rocking, but I was unfortunately at the back of my rotation and didn't see much of the fire (I spent my time in the building following hoselines and humping extra line up to my nozzleman).
An interesting feature of Class A buildings is the addition of "space tiles," or a repeating pattern of ceramic plates that cover most surfaces (usually the ceilings, sometimes the walls) of the burn rooms; they reflect and trap the heat to get the enclosure as hot as possible.
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Wednesday's burn will be at MFRI (The Maryland Fire/Rescue Institute) in College Park, MD; pictures and stories of me (finally) on the nozzle to follow.
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