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.