Station 2 Day

Today I am out at Station 2. This time we are actually needed, though not much, since all the planes that were supposed to come down today canceled due to weather. Evidently they are having some bad weather in Christchurch, NZ today. But they did have one come down yesterday (the weather was actually decent yesterday) and it is still on the ground. They were supposed to do some FAA flights, flying around, checking GPS coordinates and stuff, but the weather has taken a turn for the worse again, so I'm not sure if they will be flying today or not. They still have the heaters on the engines, but I don't know if they are actually running (they have to attach heaters to the engines of the C-130's to warm them up before they start, since they are diesel engines, but they can't be plugged in all the time). The one good thing about being out here today is that they opened the galley out here, so we don't have to eat bagged lunches anymore or get coverage from town to go up and eat dinner. It makes it nice, actually.

I got to drive Red 1 today. I'll post some pictures of it later. It's a beast to drive, and it's relatively useless, except for the amount of agent it holds. Unfortunately, it drives so slow that unless a plane were to crash right outside the station, or come in with an in-flight emergency, it would take too long to even start up to be of any use. But it's kind of neat to drive, with it's steel tracks and stuff. Kinda hard to get in and out of though. I'm supposed to be the driver for Red 5, but it is really low on power steering fluid, so we're not sure if we'll use it or not, since everyone keeps forgetting to bring down the fluid for it, and the heavy shop won't.

Here's a shot of Red 1 (the big yellow beast) and Reds 3, 5, and 6, respectively.

The weather has gotten really bad, though we did get in some training on pulling the hoseline off the reel in the back of the trucks. It's really tough to pull, and the trucks are hard to get up in because they are so high off the ground due to the tracks. If I'm ever driving the rescue truck (the one that has the most firefighters to go in with the hose and make the attack), I don't know how I'm going to climb up into the back to open the valve to allow agent to flow. The step up is actually UNDER the 'bed' and I had a hard enough time getting in it without turnouts on. I think I need to make myself a little step stool to carry around with me or something. The hose is really hard to pull, cause it is hard rubber, and it's always cold. I do like being one of the drivers though. It means I get to play with the turret gun on the trucks.

We didn't actually get dinner tonight, since Ice Town closed down around 4pm, and the galley didn't think it would be sensible to bring dinner all the way out just for 6 people. The captain ended up bringing hot food down for us, but we did have the flight lunches and the frozen pizza (snagged from dinner the other night) just in case.

I did find out that I go for Happy Camper (ie, Snow School) in 2 weeks. The weather should be fairly nice, but I don't really care much about that. This is when they take you out and show you how to survive if you were to get caught out away from town. It's supposedly pretty neat...You have to make some snow shelters and sleep out in them overnight. I can't wait. I still need to sign up to be a Delta driver (Delta's are the big huge trucks that they use to take people to field camps and stuff) and a hut guide. I also have to return the email about Burger Bar. It doesn't pay much ($6.80/hr, I think) but the tips tend to be pretty good.

We had a Firefly marathon tonight too. My roommate has the series and the movie, and got a bunch of the 'B' shift firefighters hooked on it. One of the guys is going to the Pole for a few weeks soon, and he really wants to see the movie before he leaves, so he's been trying to get everyone caught up with the series so we can watch the movie Sunday. He leaves Monday (supposedly). I guess after that we'll have to get a new series to watch. He said he should be back here by Thanksgiving, which means it's only a 3 or 4 week deployment. If that's the case, I might want to go a little more. I do have to put my name in soon though.