Everyonce in awhile Google news give links to Ad Crucem. He seems so angry, are his views widely held? Does he have a wide following? Or, is he just another internet presenter with an agenda?
I was wondering when the annual report will be released. I thought that it generally happens in July of the following year.
I currently haul water for a small Wisconsin volunteer department using 3X10,000-gallon semi-tankers. Our department asked if I would be willing to train and volunteer as a pump operator and water supply officer. I told him I was not interested in firefighting directly, but I would be willing to become more involved with water supply operations.
How would this go over in your volunteer departments?
On one level, I believe I could do a good job; I'm a 55-year-old former Army Ranger, mechanical engineer, and successful farmer who is used to managing complex operations.
On another level, I wonder what effect it would have on unit cohesion if the guy running supply does not have firsthand knowledge and experience of how important that water actually is. I also don't get called to every incident. We only get called a couple of times a year if someone needs a lot of water in a hurry.
They would start with in-house training and then send me to weekend courses at a local tech college for certifications.
Do any other rural departments draft directly from 10,000-gallon semi tankers?
Last year, we got a contract to haul water for our rural fire department. We have 3 X 10,000-gallon tankers that we normally use to haul manure and water trees. When we got the contract, we started training with the local department every other week.
Our SOG is for the first engine to arrive to lay a 5-inch supply line, set up, and start the attack from its 1000-gallon tank.
The second vehicle on site is usually a pumper tanker, which starts supplying from its 2500-gallon tank. Then it sets up a hard line to draft from our tankers.
If/when tenders arrive, they start to set up and supply water as needed.
When our first tanker arrives, they draft from us to supply the attack engine and refill their tank. It takes about 10 minutes to pump us dry. Then another tanker takes our place. We continue this cycle as long as they need water.
Do any other departments do this? When we do mutual aid, other departments are unsure of this procedure. They often request that we gravity dump into drop tanks... but it takes us over an hour to empty.
If they cross-train with our department, they see that, wow that a lot of water with very few personnel required.
Note: In our local usage, a tanker is a civilian vehicle like ours that has no internal pumping or gravity discharge capability, while a tender is a dedicated firefighting vehicle that has pumping and gravity discharge capabilities.
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UPDATE: I talked to our department chief last night after training. As a 55-year-old FNG, I normally just try to keep my mouth shut and eyes and ears open.
He said we are a poor, rural, and sparsely populated district. We are always low on money, equipment, personnel, and water. So he has to consider every possible water source.
Before we ever came near a fire, we showed up for training ready to work. We had run 100s of iterations over different scenarios. He felt confident that we were not a danger to ourselves or his people.
With regard to other departments, he said not to worry about it. Show up when called as quickly and safely as you can, announce yourself when you arrive, and wait for guidance.
Firefighters can be stubborn and don't like new things... but they gossip. Having a big ass source of water 100 yards down the road unused is going to get people talking.
When we started the farm 10 years ago, my goal was to try to find a balance between conservation, research, and an economically viable farm. Over the years we have been collecting data as part of USDA grants and research projects associated with a university. At first it was extremely frustrating. We were a small, unproven, and unknown farm. No one knew us or trusted our data. To be honest, we didn't really know what we were doing.
Over the years, we have gotten better at collecting our data, and researchers have grown to trust us. For the past 5 years, the university has sent out a graduate student once or twice a year to validate that we are running our tests properly.
This year, a professor, one of his postdocs, and 6 students spent the week on our farm. It was pretty cool. Each morning they would go out and do fieldwork; in the middle of the day, they would do analysis; and then each afternoon, they would have a more formal lecture. All of our family and our two employees got to take part in all the sessions.
We had been working on this for the past several years. But things really came together when one of our neighbors, who runs an addiction recovery and retreat center, offered to let us rent their facility for a week at cost.
It looks like this is going to become an annual event… but next year it is going to be three weeks with a different guest lecture every week.