Broken Water Pipes

This has been a busy weekend. The combination of last weeks sub-zero temperatures and all the foreclosed or dormant homes and condo's a lot of water pipes and sprinkler heads were frozen solid. Now that we have had two days of balmy weather (20 degrees F) many of these pipes are now thawing and water is running....all over.

This morning we had a call literally across the street from the station. Water alarms were going off for about a dozen or so unit's. It took a minute to identify which unit had the problem. Upon forcing entry through the front door, the entire main level was soaked with water pouring through the ceiling in a few spots. Turns out a bathroom pipe and a sprinkler pipe both were broken.

I can only imagine the amount of time and money it will take to clean up a problem like that.

January is HazMat Month

This whole month has been focused on HazMat training at an Operational level. Lots of classroom and text book reading with 'on paper simulations'. However last night we did get some hands on experience in the Decontamination ("DECON") process. We basically set up a Decon station complete with multi-partitioned tent, portable showers (with hand brooms), litmus paper and one lucky rookie who was able to Don a Level I containment suite and go through the process.

Here's hoping to never have to worry about Level I containment/Decon.

Public Notice

Talk about keeping the public informed. LAFD has a system that sends out txt messages (as well as Tweets) to inform the public (and media) of active incidents.

Check it out:
Twitter
Web

Haz Mat

Well, MN FFI is completed. So is HazMat Awareness. Now we have started the HazMat Operations level and then MN FFII. This second half should go fairly fast.

Although calls still seem to be farily low or infrequent we have had an increase in fire related calls. A smoldering deck, chimney fire and few other smaller incidents. I guess with the weather being cold people are more indoors and with that comes fires, cig's and other potential hazards.

HaZMat Operations class has been interesting. Long but interesting. It is amazing to learn how much hazard exists in our communities and what is driving down the roads at any given time.

As we try educate the public we have to also realize we are educating the terrorists.

Happy New Year

It has been kind of quiet on the station front ever since I took the State test two weeks ago. No class. No training. Few calls and then all of sudden on Jan 01 I found myself at the station four times. A couple of false alarms and then all of sudden the first fire of the year.

Although I did not make the truck (still waiting for the official green light) sitting in the Com room and listening to the event unfold was very interesting.