Fire Safety Training

Today in my Seamanship class, we had something I believe everyone should have at some point in their lives: fire safety training. No, I don't mean like when you were a kid and the fire department came to your elementary school and you got to climb on the truck. I mean actual here-is-a-fire-and-a-fire-extinguisher-now-go-to-town type of fire training. The video we watched beforehand was, admittedly, rather cheesy and may have dated back to the early 90s; however, the information was still good. Then we had some hands-on experience. One of the fire inspectors from the Durham Fire Station and the main inspector for UNH came by and actually set some fires. They set the fire in a water tank using a propane hose and showed us all how to use different types of extinguishers. You can't simply call the fire department on a ship, so in most cases, if you are on a ship, you are a fireman. A lot of bigger vessels have their own specially trained crew that run through drills and exercises, but that does not mean that us scientists are off the hook, especially if we are the first to notice the problem. That is why training like this, along with proper first aid/first responder training is so important.

Below are some pictures from today:

setting the fire

me, extinguishing the blaze

take that, fire!