PUTTING THE WET STUFF ON THE HOT STUFF - thursday 15 november

Today I saved 6 babies, retrieved 19 cats out of trees, put out 7 structure fires, and helped a little old lady across the street.

Then I woke up.

7.50am. Time to go to work. I'm riding engine one today.

Yesterday was another story though. Yesterday we had a REAL fire. Oooooooohhh yyyyyyyeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhha!

Around 4.30pm we received an "all call" page. This means that all firefighters, on and off duty received a 911 page to turn up to the firehouse. A matt track vehicle out on the ice road to Cape Evans was fully engulfed in fire. Excitement.

It turned out to be that the gas line had ruptured and ignited. Everyone got out safely and our guys turned up to extinguish. It was located about an hours travel from McMurdo.

Today though has been the usual routine of training and the likes. After lunch we headed out to the helo pad for a building inspection. We got to watch a couple of helicopters taking off. I stuck my thumb up, hoping to hitch a ride.
It was unsuccessful.

SEA ICE SCHOOL - wednesday 14 november

For the rest of the day I had Sea Ice School. This is where you learn about save travel on ice. We learnt how to measure cracks, the types of cracks, making anchors, and signs to look for. It was a fantastic day and mostly out in the field. It was really great to get an understanding on how the environment works down here. The different types of cracks are caused by, tidal movement, pressure build up, movement in the ice, human impact, and where the sea ice meets the ice shelf. For save travel, If the sea ice is thinner than 76cm, then the crack must be narrower than one-third track length (that's the part of the track/wheel which has contact with the ice during travel). All interesting stuff. Out came the drill and the measuring tape, as we made numerous holes in Antarctica.