Innsbruck, Austria- September 8, 2004
First day of the two days at the Fire Fighting School. First exercise we went out and tried putting out various fires with fire extinguishers. Later they set a car on fire for 10 minutes, and then a few volunteers were able to put it out. I wish I would have been one of the volunteers. Apparently a car generally doesn't explode (like the Hollywood movies) when its on fire. Or at least definetely not immediately. There is a lot of time they said to try to rescue someone who is injured in a burning car. Interesting anyhow.
Later we did this exercise where you had to find yourself through some maze in the dark with a group of 3 people. Most firefighters who do this exercise usually do it with all their equipment and turn on some simulated heat or something. For us, we did with just the clothes on our back in regular air, so it wasn't that difficult. Kind of fun trying to find your way in a maze in total darkness. It didn't take long to get through, but it was fun.
The last exercise of the day was they had us go into a truck as a group of six. Drove us into some really large building, set up some fires and blasts and simulated a huge car wreck in what was suppose to be a large tunnel in the dark. Our job was to find our way out. It was pretty cool though, explosions everywhere and old damaged cars.. we ultimately found the tunnel walls and felt our way to a corner that had an exit out of there. Pretty interesting however.
Tomorrow we have some more excercises. I think one of them is going to be what they call a "Burn House".. they light up fires with a computer and you have to put them out with a fire extinguisher by entering the building. I don't know if we will do that or not, but I'm certainly hoping so.
Next Journal Entry in Austria:
September 9, 2004
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com