OCR Text |
Show HILLTOP TIMES Million Million TIMES October 15, 2009 At left, Robert Beaver, 775th Civil Engineering Squadron firefighter, pilots Crash Truck No. 6 with two students from Hill Field Elementary sitting in the cab and watching^as he maneuvers the Snozzle on top of the truck to put out a simulated aircraft fire at the fire training area at Hill Air Force Base on Oct. 9. JAMES ARROWOOD/U.S. Air Force At right, Beaver shows Rachel Smith, a sixth-grader from Field Elementary School and one of four winners of the Firefighter for a Day essay contest sponsored by the 775th CES, how to refill the water tank on a crash truck with water from a fire hydrant at Fire Station No. 1 on Oct. 9. Firefighters for a Day At left, students don fire gear and stand behind Jack Carrasco, a firefighter with the 775th CES, as they attempt to put out a fire contained within the Swede Survival trainer at the fire training area. Below, Smith and Carrasco aim the attack hose line nozzle at a fire contained within the Swede Survival trainer as Bianca Ramos stands by to watch and Alexis Sears BY LEE ANNE HENSLEY Hilltop Times staff W hile most of the school children at Hill Field Elementary School were going through their show-and-tell routines last Friday morning, four of the children were witnessing the best show-and-tell by the Hill Air Force Base fire department. These four students — Bianca Ramos, Rachel Smith, Alexis Sears and Jacob Candler — were winners of the essay contest sponsored by the 775th Civil ErigffieW ing Squadron fire department in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week, Oct. 4-10. The essay topic requested fire prevention tips and some of the winning essays provided basic tips such as feeling a door with the back of the hand to determine if a fire is burning on the other side or not leaving flammable liquids where a fire can easily ignite. However, Smith took a creative . approach with her essay. "I wrote mine like a game show .and called it 'Who Wants to be Fire Smart?'" said the sixth-grader, who was also a winner of last year's essay contest along with Ramos. The prize for winning the essay contest was spending a morning with the 775th CES fire department to be a Firefighter for a Day. „ Their morning began in the common kitchen area, where they treated to hot cocoa and lisened to the four different alarm indicating a medical, {{Structural fire, air field or rescue •Response call. Then each student "Cri^as paired with a firefighter to cShelp them go through the morning engine checklist. 3c "A fire engine check is someC?thing we do every morning to Censure that all equipment is acrvcounted for and operational on >wjhe truck," Robert Beaver, a 775th C&ES firefighter, explained to the •^Students. S*- After ticking off the checklist 3$and, for Smith, testing out the Stiigh-power water nozzle features £H£>n the crash truck near the flight^Sfine, the sfudents were fitted with ^•professional helmets, jackets and >ifire-resistant gloves to wear for **2he remainder of the morning in •t<>rder to get the full effect of be' ing a firefighter. Then two pairs of students piled into two fire trucks ;;*and rode to the fire training area, a remote area on the east side of • Hill AFB that hosts a metal structure that simulates a C-130. The structure is retrofitted V ;with propane lines that engulf the students from Hill Field Elementary School and winners of the Firefighter for a Day essay contest. MORE: For more activities associated with Fire Prevention Week see Page 11 structure with instant fire by the push of a button from a nearby operations tower. The students took turns riding in the crash truck while it circled the flaming airplane structure and sprayed it with thousands of gallons of water via a remote-controlled nozzle at the top of the truck. The final activity the young firefighters engaged in before being treated to a barbeque lunch by the fire department was putting out a fire in the Swede Survival trainer with an attack hose line. The Swede Survival trainer is an enclosed metal box that allows a sizable fire to burn in a controlled setting, explained Fire Inspector Ken Kipp. Usually, the firefighters sit inside the box at a lower level than the burning fire and watch the effects of a "flashover fire" to observe the signs that lead to that particular phenomenon. For the children's activity, however, a large fire was built inside the container and the children took turns spraying the fire with the attack hose line while standing from a safe distance. Although the morning's activities were designed to be fun for the students, the firefighters also admitted to having fun as well. "It's a blast to see the kids enjoying themselves and getting out of the classroom to learn something," Beaver said. "They were all extremely curious and wanted to learn more and more. I'm not sure if any of them intended to have a career in firefighting, but overall it was a great learning experience for them." |