Crack spackle anyone?

Day three at work...
It was a rather confusing day to begin with. First I wasn't assigned to an apparatus, then I was at Station One, then on the tanker, then the engine. A group of us went over to Scott Base station for a familiarization tour to see their fire operations and then tea and scones. The whole Antarctica New Zealand operation is pretty cool. They run a fire brigade and my understanding is that none of them have any fire training until right before they come down. Their station has "linkways" between the building such that you never have to go outside. The weather over there is always very windy and so the whole staying-inside-in-the-warmth factor is pretty sweet. The station is also very well maintained, very very clean, up-to-date and current in it's renovations. The Kiwi's are lovely people and so friendly. The only drawback is that the entire station is a kiwi green color. Huh.

After the tour we came back to Station One (in Mac town), I switched back to the tanker and we headed out to "crack spackle" some holes left from a pretty large fuel spill a week or so ago. I was dreading it as the tanker has open rear seats and it's been a very windy day today. I bundled up really well in all my bunker gear and layers and really only my eyes got too cold. Crack spackling was great fun and with the splashback my gear became pretty frozen although not wet (it freezes too fast to be wet). From there they took me out to Station Two in Ice Town on the runway to help with the flight landing. We did the usual hard-stands, moving locations a few times for offloading, hard stands again for takeoff and then clearing to Station Two and then back to town. The minor excitement was that there was a seal out on the runway down a ways and so Captain Walters (who is a Nebraska Huskers alumni with some football championship ring and is a large man) had to go out to "shoo the seal from the runway". It was pretty funny to watch. Bummer thing was that it was too far away to see the seal but you could see him out making shoo-ing movements with his arms. Back to the station after that just in time for a call and then in for some EMS training before dinner.

During dinner I was approached by a guy asking, "Are you a pretty good EMT?" It turned out that his friend had burned his arm pretty well a couple of days ago and hadn't had been self treating. It was a decent size burn on his arm that was discolored, blistering and tearing. I convinced him to meet me at the medical clinic to have the Doctor treat it prior to a nasty infection. It's tricky down here because there are very strict safety rules with Raytheon that say you must report all injuries to your direct supervisor right away. Not so much any treat and releases from the FD side. Anyway, I hope it all works out okay.

Now I'm back in the firehouse working on this and waiting for another task. Perhaps I'll just spend some time before bed studying up on the SOP's. It's been a really busy day here...

So far no set plans for tomorrow other than a bit more dive tending. I'm holding out to see a seal peek his head up!

FYI: I'm also attaching a photo of the hydrants here. Actually the wye where the hose would connect is inside the insulated box cover. Oddly though they seem to work!