I hope my ship is fire-proof!

This has been the hardest day yet, the practical basic fire fighting course. I am now very satisfied with my cold room, its lovely! I've have been out into the corridor several times this evening to check the fire extinguishers are in place and in date. In fact I am now a bit of a fire extinguisher anorak, I can't help but look at them all wherever I go and check on their condition should I need to use them! Today I have also come to really respect fire fighters and the job they do, I could not do it!

This morning we arrived at the fire school at 8am. We were issued with fire clothing (Fire resistant boots, trousers and jackets) which we put on over our overalls (so not sure why they are called overalls really!) We got a hat (USA fireman style helmet) and then strolled out onto the fire ground. Firstly we put out a few fires with different types of extinguisher, water on a wood fire, powder on some liquid and foam on some other burning liquid. We practiced putting out a chip-pan fire with a fire blanket and a chopping board(never use a damp teatowel! NEVER!). There are methods for all of these, its not simply a point and squeeze with the extinguishers or a "throw it in the rough direction of the pan" with the blanket. Then we put out a large(and very hot) fuel fire with foam from a hose.
All this was rather pleasant and even fun, we were outside in the fresh air, not for long! Next we went into the Breathing apparatus (BA) room and donned our sets. These involve a tank on your back (heavy) and a full face mask. They also have a gauge, whistle(this sounds when you are low on air) and a torch. We returned outside with the BA on our backs in teams of four.
On the fire ground is a three storey metal building with various ladders and outer platforms. We donned our face masks and climbed up to deck two, we entered the building after carrying out a door entry procedure and conducted a search of deck two in pitch black(no torches allowed). We then proceeded up a ladder to deck three to carry out another search. Throughout the exercise we had to communicate with each other to describe obstacles and movements. I was team leader so went first shouting back the line when I felt a bulkhead or hatch etc. This is hard enough without breathing apparatus on, but when wearing it you struggle to be heard clearly. Two members of our team don't speak English as their first language so I spent a lot of my time stretching out into the dark, grabbing hold of them and pushing/pulling them into the correct position.
We then exited the building on deck three and descended the ladder to the ground. At this point all I wanted to do was rip the BA off my face and breath fresh air, not allowed! I found that the BA made you conscious of your breathing because of the noise it makes and therefore it becomes difficult to breath. I had to concentrate on not concentrating on it just so I could concentrate on the task I was meant to be concentrating on (over kill on concentrate??!!). When we were allowed to remove the BA it was time for lunch, so we changed the cylinders serviced the kit and stowed it away for a break.
This afternoon was the big exercise, we were to enter the building find a casualty and fight a fire. After donning our BA kit and telling the incident commander our name and letting him check how much air we had we were good to go, the instructors checked we were all flame proof and we entered on deck two. I could not see a thing, it was smoky and dark, and beginning to get rather hot. We worked our way to a door and performed a door opening procedure (involves cooling the door with a hose, checking for steam -indicating a fire behind the door- and slowly opening it whilst crouched down to avoid any backdraft.)
The next room was very hot, I could feel the hot floor through my boots, We searched two rooms for a casualty, found one and did a gauge check to see how much air we had left. Luckily mine was the lowest which meant the two with the most were elected to remove the casualty (a 9 stone dummy). At this point I was becoming aware that I could not see anything even with my torch on, the side of my face was very hot and I really wasn't to keen on staying in there much longer! Almost as if my thoughts could be heard an instructor appeared (also all done up in BA equipment and fire suit). He wiped my visor (didn't realise smoke can cloud up the visor!) and shouted at me to move into the next room so he could replace my flash hood(a sort of heat resistant balaclava) as I was likely to burn my ears off. That was a welcome interlude! When back in the room with the rest of my team we were told to descend a ladder in to the room below. First we all had to peel back our gloves to reveal a bit of skin and hold it in the hatchway for five seconds to gauge if the room was too hot to enter. I rather thought it was but everyone else seemed to think it wasn't so down we went.
The first person cooled the ladder with the hose and then descended, we lowered the hose down to him and he cooled the ladder for the second person. I was third and followed by four. As I descended the ladder (as quickly as possible due to the fact it was bloomin warm!) I felt like I was lowering myself into an oven. When I reached the bottom and turned around there was a huge fire on the other side of the room (about 8 foot away). It was very very hot, I cannot exaggerate how hot it felt. The instructor then made us tell him what type of fire it was (A) and what dangers there were. We then did another gauge check and I was selected to fight the fire. I moved to the front of the team and took the hose. I had to stand up and blast the fire at its core for 4 seconds, then duck and wait for the steam to clear. After repeating this several times the fire died down. Just as we were about to discuss further what we would do next one of our whistles started to sound indicating we were running low on air. Luckily this meant we could exit and finish the exercise. After being debriefed and removing our BA we went to get out of our fire gear, When I removed my fire clothes my white boilersuit underneath was almost see-through from sweat due to all the heat. I really have never been so hot.

I am tired now from writing all that, Sea survival tomorrow so I'll get off to bed for some rest!

Got my passport back today, blasted Yanks have stuck an ungly U.S Visa into one of the pages.