Once a year your Brigade conducts burnover training.
During Gospers Mountain Fire members of the Brigade suffered a burnover where the fire engulfed them so quickly they were not able to get back to the fire truck and had to take shelter under a building.
Sharing their experiences helps our newer volunteers understand the risks and learn how to shelter in the tanker and use the water sprays to protect the vehicle and its occupants.
Inside the tanker each member of the crew has a fire blanket. They crouch down in the cabin and pull the blanket over them, making certain that there is some blanket between them and the doors of the tanker to protect from the heat of the fire.
The training was conducted by Steve Body, our Training Officer, and it started with a briefing in the fire shed:
We then used both the Cat 1 and the Cat 7 tankers to practice getting all the crew in, rolling down the protective window shields, using the water sprays, using the correct radio procedures to alert Fire Control that we were undergoing an emergency, and then putting out any fires around the tanker after the fire had passed.
All our photos are here.
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