Thursday 30 April 2009

In Which I Volunteer

About 2 years ago, I was shanghaied volunteered to become the deputy Fire Warden for our office, but as I was only the ‘spare’ I didn’t need to do much. As H no longer wishes to carry on, we had to nobble encourage someone else to take over, and on Wednesday the two of us, plus the four Fire Wardens from our other two offices, found ourselves doing our fire marshal/warden training.

It was a four hour course – much of it taken up with watching Instructive Training Videos, from which I learned that Fire Fighters are not necessarily good actors and that even Really Dramatic Music does not make videos about checking the batteries in smoke alarms exciting.

On one of the more exciting videos, 2 very bad actors got to practice using fire-extinguishers. They had 2 firemen to help – one to set things on fire (donttrythisathomechildren), and one to tell them in a very serious voice how to use the different extinguishers. Then the bad actors got to put out the fires.(But only if it is safe to do so, and only if you have a safe exit so you can run away if need be)

We did not have our own fireman, so we were not allowed to set things on fire. We did however get to use fire extinguishers to put out some very dangerous waste bins in the car park. Playing with fire extinguishers is fun.

Also, I am now officially qualified to set the fire alarms off once a week, and force everyone to evacuate the building twice a year. I shall try to use my powers only for good.

8 comments:

Ticia said...

Try not to let the power go to your head. :-)

Phiala said...

We get to light things on fire for our training. Much more entertaining that way.

Marjorie said...

Phiala, that was what I was hoping for.
Maybe next time.

Siri said...

OK, seeings as it's only us here, she typed, changing the subject totally, what happened to Dread Val on Lorraine's blog? Did all the new folk drive her away? I feel guilty. She was there first.

I though one of you might know....

I love fires.

In contained spaces. Really.

Siri said...

And may I be the first to say Happy May, Marjorie.

Marjorie said...

Siri, I think she is just v. busy - Na asked her about it on facebook a couple of days ago. And she can't come in June, either. (Hey, that's next month now!)

Happy May!

Phiala said...

M, I have to admit I've never been to the fire extinguisher training, tho they do light fires, but we burn things other times too. I'll dig out some photos.

Val is appearing sporadically on Twitter - I'd go with busy.

Dragonsally said...

Huh, we never got to play with extinguishers when I was a fire warden. We did get taught how to recognise bombs made from mobile phones though!