15 Minute SCBA!!!

[Gerry52]

I scored a 15 minute, 4500psi, SCBA tank yesterday (been waiting a year & a half for it to "expire" so I could get it)! In 30 years in the fire protection industry I've never seen one before. PERFECT for my backpack & a long day of pesting. Just curious if ANYONE else has one or has seen one. I'd like to think SOMETHING makes me unique! 18" total length. 

 

[Peashooter]

Nice get out of Dodge bottle. I call it that cuz surely you cant do much more than escape a fire on that little thing.

never seen anything like that getting my smoke diver certificate or on any following biannual refresher course, i think it was 10 - 12 L bottles in steel we lugged around.

If it was not for the many - many 100 deg C hot fires we had to put out before our boots melted, then just wearing the damn thing and crawling blind thru the smoke filled maze worked up a sweat really good too.

Some people would empty a new bottle just on the maze, and also pretty much had to change bottle for each fire they engaged, me though already horribly not fit i would just need to change tank 1 time during the day.



BTW. On a insertion after putting out X fires and finding Sten ( that is actually a Danish boy name,,,, it also mean stone in Danish a suitable name for a dummy filled with granite gravel and weighing 85 kilos as i recall ) Well carrying that "guy" out was a task too even for a 2 man hose crew as "Sten" was 100 % dead weight.

And Sten being the idiot he always is hiding in a closet or under a bed or something,,,, hell i have even found him on a closet 6 feet above the floor.

Could this bottle be a victim bottle ? so something you put on a person before attempting rescue / evac ??

Picture of "Sten " getting evacuated, here by primadonna land dwelling smoke divers on a stretcher,,,, us sailors we had to manhandle the guy out of there.

Also i never seen "Sten" look that fine, when i have met him he have been a smoked and dirty wreck of a victim

 

[Gerry52]

I was crew chief on a structural fire fighting rig but before that I spent a season in wildland firefighting here in California. HARDEST WORK I'VE EVER DONE but the most exciting & adrenaline filled rush! I wanted to be a jumper but didn't want to drop the 12 lbs weight I had over limit. Bottle could have been for a victim or a "get outa Dodge" emergency tank. It's perfect for a backpack PCP filler!

 

[Peashooter]

O i tip my hat to those smoke jumpers out there, especially these years when everything seem to ignite every damn year.

I also always wished that the mandatory biannual refresher courses was every year, cuz i thoroughly enjoyed those and i went into " hero " mode

Last time i was on a refreshed course they added a simulated gas fire too, pretty awesome when that much gas burn,,,, and the sound,,,, OMG

But pretty easy, suppress it and get in there and turn the tap off.

When i sailed the world it was on tanker ships, carrying some form of refined product but most often gasoline, a 1/8 mile long huge "jerry can" filled with gasoline that can go horribly bad if it start leaking and burning.

A fire drill in the middle of the Indian ocean or some other hot place on the equator,,,,, that do lighten you a lot sweating that much, and thats me talking which spent most of my time in the engine room doing the engineers work, also a damn hot place.

I have also been put up for a royal commendation here once for doing good at a scene of a accident, but as i am not a royalist,,,, i dont get why Denmark lug around such a silly old thing that dont do anything but act like a hood emblem.

Anyway i turned that down so all i got was to get smeared in the guys blood as i kept him alive trapped in his crumbled car until proper rescuers and paramedics arrived.

Okay the guys at work did look in me in shock when i arrived, cuz i drove the 75 KM to work with the guys blood all over me, so had to change work clothe and wash a little before we set off on our little ferry.

And 7 hours later when we got back to port one of the ticket girls had washed and dried my clothe so i could change back to my own stuff again.