Last night I visited Redmond Fire Department’s Station 12, on 148th NE, as I’m in Seattle this week on business meetings. A few minutes after arriving, and having exchanged a shirt and a patch with the guys, a call came in for medical aid. Paul and Eric, who were on duty with the ambulance, asked me if I wanted to ride along, and the whole evening turned really interesting. The call was for a male who had taken sleeping pills, and I rode back to the hospital with the medics and Paul. In all, it was a really good experience, from which I learned a lot. One is that they are running six studies on ambulances now, one of which is measuring the core temperature of cardiac patients after CPR, and the effects of lowering it with chilled saline. I also saw the “megamover” in action, which is basically a heavy-duty canvas stretcher meant for moving a patient around places where the rigid one won’t fit – a very good idea.

Stay safe brothers, and thank you!

To this guy it seemed the logical thing to do. “Hey, my car is on fire…and look, there’s a gas station, where they have plenty of those huge fire extinguishers on wheels, I’m saved!”.

A buddy from our firehouse and I were stopped at a gas station filling up the car doubling the car’s value by filling its tank, when we suddenly spot a flaming vehicle approaching fast. The reaction from everyone at the station was the same – we got the hell out of there as fast as we could! Once it looked like nothing was going to catch fire, and with the driver safely out of the vehicle, we put it out with a couple of powder and CO2 extinguishers. A CO2 extinguisher will do little to put out a car, but it can drive the flames down enough to stop some of the radiated heat, allowing a second person to unload a foam or powder extinguisher closer to the fire. Sometimes you gotta do with what you have on hand!

Extra points for spotting what’s wrong with the picture above. If you don’t know, watch this video:

and remember it the next time you respond to a vehicle fire. The guy in the video wasn’t wearing full PPE either.

I came across a new blog, Ladder The Roof, which aims at looking at firefighting from the lighter, more humorous side. While firefighting is a very serious business, like all jobs, has its moments when people do funny things, or events can be looked at with irony and humor. Check out the blog here, be sure to add it to your feeds, and spread the word!

It’s not a native application (getting to know XCode is going to be harder!), but a so-called “web application” for the iPhone. A few times I’ve been at RTAs involving trucks carrying hazardous chemicals, and other times it’s out of curiosity that I would like to know what exactly is the well-protected container wrapped in warning labels carrying when such a truck drives by. If you want to dive right in without going through the introduction, browse your iPhone to http://the.firehou.se/hazmat – if you save it as webclip on your desktop you will get a nice orange flaming icon with it.

Hazardous chemicals and their classification

To cover the need of a unified system to classify and identify dangerous goods in transport, a unified number system was devised and adopted by the United Nations, and is now recognized by a number of countries, including those in the European Union and the United States. The commonly used label on trucks, train carts and other containers is an orange placard with two numbers – the top is the Hazard Identification Number (HIN), and the bottom the UN Number, uniquely identifying the substance. It looks like this:

In this particular example, the HIN is 33, meaning highly flammable liquid (the same number repeated indicates an increased danger), and the substance as the UN number 1203, which corresponds to motor spirit, gasoline or petrol. For example, diesel is not as flammable as gasoline (lower flashpoint) and carries a HIN of 30.

In addition to these placards, a container must carry hazmat (hazardous material) information placards, known as ADR labels in Europe, an example of which is shown below:

The HazMat web application

Without further ado, here is what the desktop looks like with the webclip shortcut added to it:

Once you launch it, Safari will show a very simple form with one field – the UN number. Enter it, hit ‘Search’, and get the basic HazMat information for the substance in question. To search another number, scroll to the bottom of the form.

I plan to add additional information like safe distances for various spill sizes and emergency response information. Feedback in the comments please. Enjoy!

Last week was exciting…if you’re into pulling people out of wrecked cars. That is exactly what a few teams of firefighters from around the world were doing, organized as a competition, but in reality a live forum to exchange experiences and techniques. If you are ever involved in a serious car accident (MVA, RTA, or whatever denomination it has in your country!), these are the people that will pull you out. I took some photos and videos, these are a few from my Flickr album, the videos will come in a couple of days – enjoy (or not!).

Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service working on the extrication of a victim.

The tools of the trade – hydraulic jaws of life, as they are known, powered by portable pumps, they put on tons of pressure when cutting or spreading.

An upside down car with a side obstacle, this one was pretty tough, but well handled by the Bridgend South Wales Fire & Rescue team.

Royal Berkshire Fire & Rescue about to extricate a victim with a longboard. They completed the first task in the assigned 20 minutes, but could not get the second casualty out in time. Even though, a pretty impressive show.

Not quite sure where this team was from, but they got a very tough one, with a completely overturned vehicle.

Update: As I finished writing this, I noticed the competition results are out – here they are:

Overall

1st Hampshire F&RS, England
2nd Royal Berkshire, England
3rd Bridgend South Wales F&RS, Wales

Complex Class

1st West Yorksire F&RS, England
2nd Central Scotland F&RS, Scotland
3rd Bombers De La Generalitat, Spain

Standard Class

1st Hampshire F&RS, England
1st Royal Berkshire, England
3rd Crecsent Link, Northern Ireland

Rapid Class

1st Hampshire F&RS, England
2nd Central Scotland F&RS, Scotland
3rd Royal Berkshire, England

Best Team Captain

1st Bridgend South Wales F&RS, Wales
2nd Royal Berkshire, England
3rd Crecsent Link, Northern Ireland

Best Medic

1st Hampshire F&RS, England
2nd Royal Berkshire, England
3rd Consorcio Provincial Toledo, Spain

Best Technical

1st Hampshire F&RS, England
2nd Central Scotland F&RS, Scotland
3rd Royal Berkshire, England

Congratulations to all!