Only 1 Course Left

I spent the weekend in Comox going through the "Fire Attack level II". It's similar to a course that I did 2 years ago, but this time I went through it as a team leader. Instead of doing the heavy work of dragging out patients, hauling hoses, and forcing doors open, I had the job of yelling out orders, keying the radio mic, and keeping track of 2 other firefighters.

Imagine a concrete building divided up into 2 floors and a few small rooms on each floor. The fire techs light a big pile of pallets on fire in one of the rooms. To simplify things, my task was to take my crew of firefighters into the building, find the fire and any victims, extinguish the fire without poaching anyone, extricate the victims, and leave the building all the while providing constant updates to the incident commander.

There were 4 teams, but only 3 team leaders which meant that I was in on 2 out of every 3 scenarios. I'm guessing I went through 16 evolutions over the 2 days. I learned lots, gained a ton of confidence, and had a lot of fun to boot. It's pretty exciting being in a room that's so hot that if you were to stand up, the heat would melt the lexan visor on your helmet.

Just last week I finished a course on the Incident Command System standard for North America. Now I have 2 text books to read before my 7 day course on Emergency Scene Management which happens at the end of May. Then, FINALLY, I can take a breath and enjoy the summer.