Customs Dodges

[Keith Tindell]

Its one of the things that we had to change when we recruited women firefighters Ivan, those dummys were too heavy fro the females, thats not decrying women in any way , but they are not normally as capable of heavy lifting as males. the entrance rules all had to be changed, used to have minimum-maximum chest sizes, the females flew through that part, lol, kt

[Jim Brady]

I was an Established Seaman so you went where you were sent when things were slack they would want to get rid of you so they would do this by sending you on a course one such course was a fire fighting course at Hatton Garden Fire Station Liverpool.We were split up into groups of two and was given a different fire extinguisher to make up,Soda Acid,Foam and Co2. There were corrugated huts in the yard in which they lit fires and you had to tackle the fire with the extinguisher that you had made up,we were wearing whatever we attended in,could be a suit shirt and tie.The lads on the foam had to tackle a tray of burning oil.The way to extinguish this they were told was to hit the back plate and then build up on it like icing a cake,eventually smothering the fire on top of the oil with foam.Back in the classroom the instructor was talking about tackling the fires and did we find the advice useful one guy said that's fine icing the cake like that but how do you go on at sea when the oil is slopping all over the place,just do your best said the instructop. I think it was a three day course.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[robpage]

we arranged Winchester , well Eastleigh I think to teach the office staff how to use anv extinguisher plus fire awareness , I didn't know how dangerous they could have been with no training

[Shaun Gander]

Shaun, here in the UK . the premier fire training establishment for civilians as well as the regular fire service, is in Morton-in Marsh Gloucester. They are geared up for pretty much any scenario. In the case of ship fire fighting they have a full size concrete ship in a dock, several decks deep. The exercises carried out involves loading huge amounts of timber in the lower area of this ship and lighting up. Crews have then to enter via the top deck and pulling hoses with them in BA lift the hatches and decent each deck to put the fire out. The heat is tremendous as you would imagine. There are escape doors at various levels in case anyone gets into trouble, and they frequently do. I attended the 6 week BA instructors course, and in that 6 weeks an ambulance had to be called twice, mainly to deal with heat exhaustion . This site is on an old wartime airfield, and there are concrete high rise buildings, dummy aircraft, etc etc. Many foreign Fire Services are sent to Moreton, usually for their senior officer training, kt

Driven past a few times but never got to attend any courses there, so of our senior officers did I think.

SDG.

[vic mcclymont]

When working at Nottingham Magistrates Court, part of the remit was safety, including fire. Magistrates Courts were independent, but because 80" funding from the Nottingham County Council and other arrangements they had the final say on what we did.
We trained our people to be fire wardens and their responsibility on what they could do in the event of a fire. As far as we were concerned the Fire Extinguishers were ornaments, no one was trained on how to use them.
Two Wallahs came from Notts County Council came to do an audit on safety and fire evacuation etc.
We passed with flying colours, they only comment was that no one was trained on extinguisher usage, our argument was get people out of the building sagely and leave fire fighting to the experts.
The debate lasted a while, and I killed it stone dead when asked what training they gave to their people had at the County Headquarters, non was the reply.
They gave up and we won the debate.
Vic

[robpage]

What the guys from Hampshire fire and rescue at Eastleigh told our office staff if the fire is within a waste paper basket and no bigger than the basket you can attempt to put it out of extinguisher other than that get the hell out of it

[happy daze john in oz]

No doubt all of us remember the bucket of sand and one of water in many buildings long before the current rules applied.
Most sand buckets would have been of little use they were full of cigarette buts.

On the outer rim of Tullamarine airport there is an old aircraft used for emergency training but though you can see them from the road as they practice have never seen a fire drill take place there.

[Ivan Cloherty]

On the outer rim of Tullamarine airport there is an old aircraft used for emergency training but though you can see them from the road as they practice have never seen a fire drill take place there.

Probably use smoke bombs John, as being aluminium the plane would only last one fire drill, we used steel mock ups in the MN training and boy did they hold the heat.

[Ronald Maben]

Ref 115, however Ronald, if there had been a genuine fire onboard, some sucker may have grabbed that, and got himself in difficulty trying to use it, just an observation from an ex fireman, kt

It was in my cabin the when the customs came on board I put it outside my cabin did u think I would a real one I am not that daft.

[Jim Brady]

Ron stop digging,read original post every ship every trip.
Regards.
Jim.B.