Marine Engineering Training: Short Courses Week - Days Three Four and Five

For the first half of day three we did Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities. There's not much to say about this, but it was useful as we covered what not to do on board and what has to happen each time we join a ship etc.

The rest of the week was dedicated to...

Basic Firefighting course

The first day was purely classroom based and we covered all the types of fire. We learned how to deal with them, and techniques for using fire extinguishers, door opening techniques etc.

Day two was at the firefighting school classroom and we had various lab style demonstrations. We also tried on the BA (breathing apparatus) sets.

Day three was the culmination of all the theory we had learned with the practical aspects of firefighting. So, we were to learn how to use each type of extinguisher for the given fires, then learn how to use the fixed installations for firefighting (typical red hose reels you see that are like a big version of your garden hose). We worked our way up to using the full sized firefighting hoses with the bigger more powerful nozzles. This is what we would be using in the afternoon exercises. All the team have to hold it while the front man controls the spray.

The afternoon consisted of two exercises - both wearing the BA sets.

The first exercise was to carry out a direct search of the container pictured below in total darkness - we weren't allowed to use our torches.

(Richard pointing)

This search involved teams of four people each time. The team had to all put a hand on the person's shoulder in front, with the person at the front sweeping one arm and foot whilst moving along the walls of the container, to avoid walking into anything and tripping over, or falling down a manhole. This was basically a communication exercise, as you couldn't see anything. So, being at the front, I just had to constantly tell the team what I was doing (eg "there's an obstruction ahead of me, moving one foot to the righ"). This would allow them to move round the obstacles I was encountering. We had to search three rooms this way then exit the container. Our group did well and they were happy with how much we communicated.

The next exercise was the actual fighting of a fire inside the container. Our instructions were to go in and perform a direct search on Deck 2 (2nd floor), recover a casualty (a weighted dummy), then go down a ladder inside and put out a carbonaceous fire on Deck 1. Once we had done this we could exit the building. Time is limited as you only have a certain breathing air before whistle time - this is when your set makes a constant whistle to let you know that you have ten minutes of air left. By that point you should already by out of there. You can only breathe with the BA sets on, as the air is so hot and smoky it will kill you if you breathe it normally. They demonstrated this by holding a plastic cup into the smoke layer for a second or two. It melted and shrank - we were told your lungs would immediately be damaged, blister, the blisters would then burst straight away and you would probably end up dying from secondary drowning in your own mucous. They always say it's the smoke that kills, but I had never really realised it was because of the heat element of the smoke as well as the actual fact that you can't breathe it.

Firefighting has to be well planned due to the air supplies. There is a board where everybody's air pressures get noted down before they go in - and you have to hand over your personal tag to show you are going in. Once they have your tag and your air pressures, they work out the approximate time until whistle time. You then put the shortest time down to make sure everybody will have enough air. Due to the limited supply of air you have to be aware that whatever time it took you to get in it will take you to get out, so you need to apportion enough air just for entry and exit. This leaves less air than is probably desirable for the actual fire fighting, which is why you'll have constant teams moving in and out if the fire continues. All the teams are organised on this board and it is vital that somebody is constantly updating and monitoring it.

Once the staff had made a fire in the container and they had let it fill with smoke and heat, we were to go in and do the exercise. in groups of four again Luckily for us, it wasn't the hottest day of the week. Before you even go into the container you are very hot, as you are wearing a boiler suit, with firefighting trousers and jacket, plus heavy boots, a balaclava, a helmet, gloves, and a full BA set which is reasonably weighty. Once you go in, you get a lot more hot too - and not just on your upper body, but you feel the heat through the soles of your boots too.

We worked our way through Deck two and found the casualty in one of the smaller rooms that represents a cabin. Then we had to evacuate the dummy to the nearest exit. Once we had done this we had to go down the ladder. This involves cooling down the ladder before each person descends it. Once you are safely to the bottom you cool the ladder and kick the bulkhead three times with the steel toe cap of your boot. This allows the person next to know it is safe to descend. Once we were down to Deck 1 we were in the same room as the fire so we were receiving about 100 degrees centigrade on our suits (on the advanced firefighting course we do next year we will have much harsher fires and will receive about 300 desgrees centigrade on our suits!). We had to do short bursts of water as it flashes off to steam - you must let it dissipate before giving it another burst of water or you will not be able to stand the heat. So we would give it a short burst, then duck for a bit and test the air above us with a bare wrist each time. If you could hold a bare wrist to the heat for five seconds you could then stand up and give it another burst. We did this a few times, then exited the container. Normally with a carbonaceous fire you would then keep breaking up the material and wetting it to stop it catching fire again. As there were lots of groups to get through we could not do this, so we exited the container.

We were in there for twenty minutes to half an hour but time goes so quickly. I could bear the heat well, partly as I had expected it to be so hot that I would just want to run for the nearest available exit - I guess when we do the advanced firefighthing then it will be unbearable heat. The most frustrating thing is having to constantly cart the hose round with you all holding it, as it is reasonably heavy and cumbersome to move around.

I thoroughly enjoyed this course, and hopefully we'll get a decent regular fire drill on the ships I go on for my sea phase, as it will be beneficial to get used to wearing all the gear more.

All the rest of the photos are below for you to see (click on them to view larger size).

Everyone on break