Fire Science Education

Many of you know I am working on a Fire Science Degree through Casper College. Although somewhat reluctant to initially believe this type of education would be very valuable, now finishing up my first semester, I confess, I was WRONG!!

I'd like to share my latest assignment with you all. It was so profound to learn about the fire disaster and the 9 NIOSH firefighter fatalities in the furniture store in Charleston, SC! Please print this out and read it; there are so many interesting points. Let me cap a few for you, in case your life is crazy and you really don't have time!

• The supply line to the very large furniture store was 50 sections of 2 1/2" hose. The 4" supply lines did not get established with water flowing until close to an hour after the call came in.


• The very large 51,500 ft2 structure SHOULD have been sprinklered per their ordinances.


• 28 gallon cans of extremely flammable solvents were found inside the loading dock, the area the fire began.


• One of the engines had a "touchy" pump and was difficult to get engaged to pump water to the fire.
  

So many things to learn in a report like this. And so many things to learn in general!! If you are interested in expanding your fire education, there may be no time better than the present.

A Wyoming Volunteer Grant may very well make this type of education possible. I have been exploring ways to make this work for any of you interested. I believe I have an avenue. Please contact me at kclay@tetonwyo.org if you want more info. Although it is challenging, an online education is just like anything else - you get out of it what you put in!

Saturday in Wyoming

For years I have sought the perfect bread pudding recipe. Not too sweet, not too dry and a sauce to drizzle over. Found it and I shall share it, cause it's good, you should try it.

Bread Pudding

8 cups of stale bread, 1" cubes

3 cups milk
1 cup whipping cream
3 eggs
2 T. vanilla or 2 whole beans scraped
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/4 t. allspice
1 t. cinnamon
1 cup dried blueberries -
soaked in 1/2 c. bourbon

Bourbon Sauce
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 c. sugar
1 egg
(Add at the end) -
1 cup bourbon whiskey

Here's what you do. First butter 8 ramekins or a 9 x 13 inch glass dish. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make the wet mixture first. I start with the eggs, then the seasonings, mix that all up. Then add the milk and then the sugar. Throw in the blueberries and the booze and lastly the bread. Gently toss or you'll have mushy, falling apart bread pieces (yuck). Spoon into ramekins and bake 40 minutes.

While that's baking, stir the melted butter and sugar together. Then add the egg and stir really well. Slowly heat, stirring all the time (or you'll get a scrambled egg). This mixture needs to heat to boiling to thicken. Take off the heat, throw in the whiskey and call it amazing topping! Yum!

Cover the cooled uneaten ramekins and keep in fring. You can nuke them about 1.5 minutes, then add some sauce, nuke another 30 seconds and enjoy.

What to do with eggshells? Somewhere I read that a person should bake them before throwing them on the compost heap. However, I can find no such info now.

Next project is to work on the compost pile. Thinking about some raised beds here at our little cabin.

Isn't he a handsome cat? Jynx out looking for a rodent to slay (and later throw up on the floor!). Ya gotta love that!!

Building of the Coop

I started to think about having chickens over a year ago. Dave Phillips will remember me talking about it over an email February 26, 2008 (you check, Dave, it's there! I asked about the 10 things a person should know to raise chickens!). Patience is a virtue!

It took a couple of months to sell Michael on the idea. Obviously, raising chickens for eggs makes no sense whatsoever! They are really, really cheap. But when was the last time you had a fresh, orange shelled and brilliantly orange-yolked egg, I ask? He finally bought in.

Next came the structure. I hated the idea of building something from all new materials. My wonderful loud mouth, obnoxious Italian friend Janet offered up a door, window and OSB board from the company "bone yard". We bought a 4 x 8 rough "structure"- used to be a wood storage shed. Fellow firefighter, Mike Mayer, practically gave us pre-stained t&g cedar siding, and the trip to Idaho Falls (see picture above) finishes up the supply stage.

Now, it is stacked and ready to go. In a week it will be May! Michael is off doing a three day forest service class in lovely Buffalo, Wyoming. It is supposed to snow. Again.

Thanks to Andy Christensen for the dog run donation - soon to be chicken run! With some work it will certainly help in the effort to keep our dogs, killer cat, the foxes, coyotes, eagles, hawks, mountain lions and wolves (?) away from the chickens.

Dave, I sure hope you've got about six chickens and one fancy rooster growing for our coop-to-be! I love processes. Sometimes it's not the having of something that is nearly as fun as the getting of it!

Stay tuned. There will be more as construction is sure to begin!

CREW RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Crew Resource Management. Jon Politis brought us this concept again at last weekend's very educational Trauma Conference. You can get a GREAT book from Amazon about CRM, click here to check out this book.

One of the big teachings of CRM is Situational Awareness. You know the problem. Things go bad, your focus narrows down to the most serious situation and you miss the "big picture." Your scene becomes tunnel visioned, fixated.

One of the very first incidents that lead to CRM was a plane crash into the Florida Everglades. All of the folks running the Eastern Airlines plane were focused on a burnt out light bulb. No one was flying the plane. The plane crashed and lots of people died.

The aviation industry trains its pilots to anticipate problems and address them in a systematic way. A first step in avoiding loss of situational awareness is to minimize the level of distractions. In the flying world this is referred to as keeping a "sterile cockpit".

This concept is easily transposed to fire department operations. Imagine your next call. You are enroute and the firefighter next to you is yammering on about how he hates his job, he hates his boss; all of this yammering is NOT about the job at hand or the one coming up very shortly. You all arrive and no one has much of a clue of what to do.

Practise this "sterile cockpit" technique from now on. Don't let anyone distract you, others or themselves from the incident at hand.

Next week, I hope to have the link to find Instructor Handouts from the Trauma Conference. Please feel free to comment on this blog site. Does it work for you? Let me know.

Testing Today

A beautiful day was had by all in Jackson Hole today. Some of us, unfortunately, made the big sacrifice and stayed inside to get smarter at the annual Trauma Conference. It is noticeably warmer, snow is melting and the grass in greening.

Let me know if you get this post. I really want to figure out how I can link information in this writing into another page that pops up. Did you check out Smitten Kitchen? Weird recipe this week, but she makes some good stuff!

This is a picture from our Emergency Vehicle Operations Training. Did you hear I got the best score? It was really fun and we got lucky on the weather that night!

Kathy's Corner

Kathy's Corner: "adventure in a helicopter"

My attempt at a blog site. Forgive me as I work through this and make discoveries! I hope my site brings something positive to any of you visitors.

I hope to share in this site. Recipes, movie reviews, cool web sites, family and friend news. On the surface, a blog site seems so, well, egotistically personal. However, I have gotten SO much enjoyment from those I follow. I'll give this a try!

Some of you heard about my adventure in a helicopter atop a mountain top last week. Happily, after the 3 attempt, the helicopter did start up and myself and three other souls did not have to spend the night on a 9500 foot mountain! Certainly, one of the most memorable events in the last week.

Best friend of all Diana is opening a yoga studio in Ottawa. I believe she has found her calling. Much work is expected in the upstairs studio (above Gunk's shop) and she hopes to be open in two months.

My mentee in the fire department, Coralia Miller, is off to the Grand Canyon for a river trip! Safe travels; you'll be a different person when you return!