Fire Fighter Weekend

As some of you know, we recently joined the local volunteer fire and emergency response department (VFR for short). Out here, the nearest medical help is 40 minutes or more away, so the VFRs play an important role in responding immediately in rural areas. Our VFR provides the first response on medical and fire calls. In fact, most of what our department deals with yearly are vehicular accidents, agricultural incidents, and drug overdoses. My Main Man plans to learn and practice as much of it as he can, both on the fire fighting and on the medical response. At this point, I am planning to do support such as dispatch.

Tanuki checks out the bunker gear.

In September, M3 attended the first ever NM Fire & EMS Expo in Socorro, NM. Socorro has an excellent fire fighting academy and training facility that has been around for decades. The event was a week-long (7 days) of classes. There were so many classes offered, one could not sign up for all of them. He was able to borrow bunker gear from am accommodating Fire Fighter, which allowed him to participate in more events.

A vehicle in slight disarray.

The event started off with a 9/11 memorial speech. From there, it was all work and fun for M3. Because he did not have the fire fighting shoes and gloves, he could not participate in the live fire training, though he could watch from the sidelines.

Tools for opening vehicles.

Instead, his days were filled with vehicle extrication (removing vehicle from around a patient) classes, a landing-area prep class (for med-evac), and then classroom lessons on agricultural incidents (such as goat injuries!), grant writing, and electrical safety.

I was home tending to the farm, but I received daily calls from M3. Learning how to take a car apart with hand tools versus power tools were some of his favorite classes. I also got a very excited call when M3 was about to get on a helicopter, as part of the landing zone prep class. So he got to see Socorro from a helicopter, his first helicopter ride.

Fully accessible vehicle.

Fire fighting activities.

Helicopter used for Landing Zone class.

The fire academy from the air.

• Posted in: Community
• Tagged: Fire & EMS Expo, Fire Academy, Fire fighter training, landing zone, New Mexico, Socorro, vehicular extrication, volunteer fire & response