Fire Station visit

Piling into the cab and learning about the equipment and complex sat nav system (bet it always gets a signal, unlike our one!).

Had a brilliant morning with HE group 2 at the local fire station. The fire crew all pitched in to make sure children and adults alike had a complete tour of the station, engines and equipment. We were encouraged to try out the powerful hoses which can drain a 2000 or so litre tank of onboard water in under a minute if being used at full power - wow!


We also had a go in the aerial lift, although we weren't taken to it's full height, luckily. One look behind me at the ladders moving skywards was enough to put me in a quiet panic - not very good with heights me. Fire stations all stock their engines differently, so training is only 13 weeks long and then it's on-job training at the designated station after that. Scary stuff I say, but these lads seem to find it a very rewarding job.

Watching the demonstration with the "jaws of life" was interesting. They practise "cutting up" wrecked cars from the scrap yard and can take the roof off a vehicle in about 10 minutes with the powerful mechanical jaws. They ripped off a side door in about 3 mins for our demonstration. Apparently, majority of their call outs are now to road traffic accidents rather than house fires so the campaigns to make householders more aware of the need for smoke detectors has obviously worked. They're now trying to push home the dangers of hoax calls.

We finished the morning with a small talk about fire safety learning the "stop, drop and roll" procedure!


The weather was so glorious that once the visit had finished, we decided to drive a little further and have our picnic lunch at Sandringham. It was still a little too nippy to actually eat outdoors, but Ben and I did have a kick around with the footie for a while afterwards. Love Sandringham - the backdrop of the huge pines is breathtaking.