I’m looking forward to a low-key day today. Or should I say I’m hoping for one? My inner workings aren’t in the mood for much activity.
The refrigerator arrived ok. They got here at 8:45 and were gone by 9:30. They had to take the doors off the unit to get it down the hallway, and then hook up the ice-cube maker.
All this while things were breaking out in Boonsboro, Maryland. I haven’t seen any first-hand reports from knowlegeable fire-watchers yet, but from what I’ve seen of the videos and photos, it looks like that little fire dept. did a mighty fine job with it.
A major fire in a small town like that is horrifying. You’ve got old, highly-flammable buildings close together and limited initial resources. And usually the next-in companies are a long ways away. Boonsboro has a population of about 3,500.
But when they got on the scene their OIC knew what kind of help they would be needing and within 20 minutes he had FD’s from three states rolling in to help. Initial lines (from what I could determine from the photos) went to the exposures and they had containment fairly rapidly, considering the magnitude of the fire.
There was an auxiliary water supply put into operation and it’s obvious that this was part of their operational pre-plans. And not just the firefighters were ready, but the town government as well. Initially the town hall, a frame building just a few doors down from the fire building, was in the direct line of fire spread. But instead of watching from across the street with a bunch of “Oh, my’s!!” the town clerks were systematically packing up and removing the historical records and the computers, etc. I think that’s terrific.
Keep that in mind when you are doing your pre-planning. The potential fire victims should be prepared ahead of time, too. And they need to be part of your plans and drills.
One thing I noticed that I liked, too. The fire chief from one of the assisting departments that had come from several miles away was the designated PIO on the scene and handled all the press conferences, etc. That tells me that these tiny VFD’s are practiced and fully-trained with the Incident Command System of operations. And it paid off as you can tell from the results. Instead of losing the town, it got no further than what they basically found on arrival. There are some much-larger fire departments that could learn from this. If they want to.
Good job, Guys !!
Ok, let’s get the equipment checked. You never know who’s next. I’ll run the coffee.
