For Reb:

Reb Cpl wrote: I will say, that's either a drill or the guys doing ventilation work are awesome- because I've never been interior where visibility is that good. Between smoke conditions and steam, there's been a lot of groping around on my part.

The house looks too good to be a drill. I'd vote on ventilation, but then again my experience in fighting fires is standing back and making sure no one runs over the hoses.

choopie911 wrote: Man you get to grope around in the dark at work and at home? Awesome. Also Reb, I don't know how fun-money is for you lately, but a GoPro is totally reasonable.

It isn't work yet. Still waiting on the test results which determine if I get an interview. What a process.

But yeah, It can't be beat.

If you get into a room that's involved, you're supposed to hit the ceiling with a few blasts from the straight stream right away to screw up the thermal layering therein. If you don't, you can have the heat press back down on you when you start hitting the actual fire.

But yeah, generally you're looking to extinguish fire by cutting off the fuel source- ie aiming low at what's burning. 

sinisterNorth wrote: That's pretty cool, always wondered what goes on in there!

I'll be honest, its odd seeing it on the video like that. When you're interior on a place that is trying its best to burn to the ground, yeah- you have some situational awareness, but you're pretty focused on what's happening right in front of you.

The very first time you go inside of a place, its amazing how your training kicks in and takes over. It honestly and truly overrides the part of your brain that's attempting to reason your body out of going into something like that. And even after my two year break when I was living outside of a volunteer area, everything was still automatic when I got back in.

My first one was two weeks after I had finished my training. It was EASIER than some of the drills they'd put us through in school.

I'll be 100% honest too... and I've never admitted this before because it sounds weird to say- despite knowing that its someone's life going up in flames, that someone could get hurt or killed....I have some degree of FUN when they tell me to 'pack up.'

But you never know what could happen in there either- One fire that I missed, the guys were ripping ceiling tiles down to get where fire had spread, and an entire nest full of charred mice fell down on one of the new guys.