I'll pay for the ladders out of pocket, and work out reimbursement later.
For now, I'll contract to have them built, and explain to the captain about the uses of collapsable fire ladders: second-story rescue, delivery of water from higher angles, breaching of rooftops to release smoke and reach trapped survivors, etc, coupled with maneuverability and ease of deployment.
My post-Ubercon report reads thusly:
I restated the above, and Captain Peter basically agreed that he can only win or break even by agreeing with my suggestion, so I will have a chance to demonstrate my ladders and get reimbursed later on.
We determined that I have a teaching score. Due to my completely illegible handwriting I can't tell if we put it at 1@5 or 1@8. I'm inclined to believe it's an 8 as I'm a fairly good teacher despite having almost no formal training. I couldn't get paid, but people learn when I set them to it.
I put said score to work, teaching my budding Fire Watch the actual mechanics of how to fight a fire; things like specialized uses for crowd control, how a bucket brigade works and how to corral people into one, the proper use of all of this equipment we've been gathering (how to use a fire axe, how to breach - or how not to breach - a burning room, how to deploy the wagons we have gathered and the buckets we have loaded into them).
We had something on the order of a week or two of training before our first fire broke out. It broke out while I was in the fire house (as I am now more or less living in my office) but while my Sergeant was current in charge. I came out and there was a brief moment of 'who's in command?' before I gave a 'what are you gawking at? The Sergeant gave you an order! Hop to!" sort of command and they went off like clockwork.
We were en-route to our first genuine fire when my table time ended.
---------------------
Two things I would like to establish, perhaps consider this 'today's' post:
I want to have checked in with my matchmaker. MJ is probably right about the timing and I don't want that getting screwed up, so I want to check in with her.
I am also still looking for tenants for the other half of my now-fixed-up duplex (I did state I was do-it-yourself-ing during my off-duty hours these last 6-8 weeks).
and
I want to start marking on a map of the city all of the easily accessible sources of water. Pumps of sufficient volume, open wells, and so forth. In the absence of proper fire hydrants, it will help to know where to look in advance. To that end, I want to assign some of my Watchers to scouting that, starting with our own block and spiraling outward to the edge of our probationary jurisdiction. Not, obviously, while our first fire is going on, but in a more general sense.
I have a note in the back of my mind that you've got a package of firefighter skills, but I don't see it on my sheet.
I'm sure it includes contain fire, extinguish fire, use axe, use water pressure system, and probably quite a few other skills, but I'll let you tell me what skills you think ought to be included.
You also need to create a somewhat smaller package that defines what your team is learning--smaller because you can't teach them to use equipment you do not have. Since you're teaching it, the details you give it will be the details they learn. Please do not be vague about it; you're going to want to know that I know that they know--well, whatever it is you think they know.
--M. J. Young
This is hard, mostly because I have to remember both what these actual skills are, which I'm a bit rusty on, and what they convert to in Multiverser.
I'm thinking...
Contain Fire
Extinguish Fire
Use/Repair/Maintain Axe, Ladder, Wagon
Peg-and-Nail Carpentry
Use Pressure System
It also includes things like being able to navigate a room by touch, find injured survivors using a collapsable probe stick or the spike-end of a fire axe, avoid smoke inhalation, breach a burning room so as not to cause an explosion, ventilate smoke out of a burning building... as well as a basic knowledge of things like architecture, structural engineering, and materials physics (I'm serious on this - we had to learn building codes and how to deal with different types of roof and wall structures, it makes a difference). And then there are the things that involve equipment I don't have yet or can't get at all; things like pressure pumps, breathing tanks, gas masks, and so forth. Does it require a skill to use a mining helmet? We don't have access to fire-retardant materials, so the fact that I know what they are doesn't help too much - I don't know how to chemically engineer them, for instance.
((I should read this at some point, especially since it's the largest forum here :)))
What I'm seeing is two packages:
Firefighter Tech Package:
- Contain Fire T1@1
Extinguish Fire T1@1
Ventilate smoke T1@2
Carpentry construction knowledge T2@0
Peg-and-Nail Carpentry T2@2
Wagon T2@3
Stonework and masonry knowledge T3@0
Axe T3@2
Prevent explosions in fire situations T6@1
Use Fluid Pressure System T7@2
Firefighter Bod Package:
- Tactile imaging navigation and search technique B0@5
Use Ladder B1@3
The one about which I am not certain is avoid smoke inhalation. It will help if you tell me how you envision this being done by your firefighters in Durnmist.
--M. J. Young
Oh--second post--you forgot skills related to bucket brigade, I think. I might have to ponder those for a while, unless you see how they fit.
--M. J. Young
Mostly that's a tactical positioning thing - staying low, making sure you know where your wind currents are, and so forth.
Bucket brigade would fall under the same Psi communications area as any other form of squad-level tactical leadership.
All right, I'm thinking that it would mean a B0@3 Awareness of Smoke and Fire Conditions, and the movement would be standard, unless you think that something special would be indicated (special skill levels at particular skills in crawling, walking, jumping, tumbling, or acrobatics).
And I particularly dislike skills that fall as tactical leadership, because they're not really easy to use in play no matter who has them--but the bucket brigade thing makes good sense, so we'll say P0@1 Lead Bucket Brigade.
Your men start with:
- Firefighter Tech Package:
- Contain Fire T1@1 1@10
Extinguish Fire T1@1 1@10
Ventilate smoke T1@2 1@4
Carpentry construction knowledge T2@0 1@4
Peg-and-Nail Carpentry T2@2 1@4
Wagon T2@3 1@10
Stonework and masonry knowledge T3@0 1@4
Axe T3@2 1@10
Prevent explosions in fire situations T6@1 None
Use Fluid Pressure System T7@2 1@5
Firefighter Psi Package:
- Lead Bucket Brigade P0@1 None
Firefighter Bod Package:
- Awareness of Smoke and Fire Conditions B0@3 1@3
Tactile imaging navigation and search technique B0@5 None
Use Ladder B1@3 1@10
You assess their abilities fairly quickly within the first couple days, recognizing that they have all fought fires before, and use fires in their own homes for cooking and heating, so they have high amateur skills in some of the fire-related skills. Most of their other skills come from ordinary use in this world--learning to drive or pull a wagon or carriage, using the water pumps in the wells, chopping wood, making minor repairs at home.
You can get everyone up to amateur ability in the skills they do not have, but the tough part is improving their skills in those areas in which they are top amateurs. Before I give some assessment of their abilities after a bit of training, describe to me any aspect of that training that is being focused on helping them improve the skills they know.
--M. J. Young
General
Any skill can be made more difficult by adding the following modifiers:
-while sleep-deprived.
-while exposed to the elements.
-while distracted (loud noises, sudden changes in focus).
-while carrying a heavy load.
-while protecting a rescued survivor.
-at night.
-with too few people for the job.
Contain Fire
-Containing non-standard fires, i.e. those involving flammable liquids like lamp oil
-Containing larger-than-normal fires
-Containing fires with an unusual amount of smoke and/or foul smelling and/or caustic smoke.
Extinguish Fire
-extinguishing a nonstandard fire.
-extinguishing fire using both specialized and improvised equipment.
-extinguishing a larger-than-normal fire.
Wagon
-driving a wagon full of equipment.
-driving a wagon full of equipment quickly, without losing any equipment.
-driving a wagon full of equipment quickly, without losing any equipment, through crowded city streets.
-driving a wagon full of equipment quickly, without losing any equipment, through crowded city streets, at night.
Axe
-use in conjunction with other skills - breaching walls and doors and windows, etc.
-use in adverse conditions, especially using an axe while wet and/or exposed to the spray of a pressure pump indirectly (direct exposure is far too dangerous).
-use one-handed (goes along with 'while carrying a survivor').
Use Ladder
-mostly as handled under 'general'.
-use the new folding ladders.
-use the new folding ladders quickly.
-use any ladder quickly, as a team effort in deployment and climbing.
-climb while wearing full equipment and carrying an axe.
-climb down a ladder while carrying a survivor.
For the less-than-1@10 skills, it's really just a matter of getting them to practice it until they can do the routine things easily, until it feels like they need more challenge (i.e. when I can tell they've hit 1@10).
Your practice with fighting fires appears to require that you set fires and contain and extinguish them. That makes perfect sense to me--I've been to the Ramapo fire training school, and a VW minivan I dearly loved was donated to them for practice once--but such a facility not existing here, I find it necessary to ask how you intend to arrange such practice sessions.
--M. J. Young
Is there a large, vacant lot anywhere nearby we could rent out to burn things?
Maybe a space outside of town we could use for off-site training?
The best you can do on that count is a rocky field about five miles out of town, which makes it seven miles from the firehouse. There is a pond on one edge of it, and it's about three acres, but it's surrounded by farmland.
--M. J. Young
That will work fine. Five miles is a good PT style jog. We'll get everyone running... Oh wait I hate running... Ah well, a brisk jog then. Still need to get our equipment out there. And our people.
I'm hoping that the Captain will have something to say about this, while I'm pouring over my desk, a map, and how to conduct a troop movement of all of our men and all of our gear out to this vacant lot, along with some stuff to burn.
"I guess that makes sense. I hadn't really thought about the idea that learning to fight fires would mean starting a few and putting them out.
"We can get some of the stuff drawn up to the site a day or two in advance; the department does have a few horse wagons, and if we make arrangements to use them that won't be a problem. I'm less certain what we would burn. Firewood is expensive, and so is coal. We could use lamp oil, but that's not going to be the same kind of fire, is it?
"We should probably also move some of our gear that way. These hand-drawn wagons are fine for our six block radius, but pulling them five miles out of the city would be rough on the equipment.
"I'm also wondering about the balance between realism and safety. On the one hand, I can see starting the fire and then having the crew rush over, set up their equipment, and dowse it. On the other hand, if they're not up to snuff, our fire has a chance of escaping into the surrounding cropland, which is not going to make us any friends. That suggests we want to have some of the equipment ready to fight the fire if the crew doesn't get the other equipment prepared quickly enough; and that suggests we're talking about training one crew while the other stands by for trouble.
"It also means disrupting someone's schedule, of course, since we're going to need to train everyone even though some of the crew will be on the wrong schedule. That happens, though, so I suppose they should get used to it.
"Shall we do it this weekend?"
--M. J. Young
"We need to train on oil fires anyway, especially if we're going to be working around the docks and such, so if we need to start with oil fires that's not such a big deal.
As for firewood, yes it's expensive. We should look for a way to get it that's also a community service, like clearing out a junkyard or taking down a derelict building, if you know of any. We're not likely to be fighting any major coal fires, seeing as coal doesn't tend to burn out of control and doesn't tend to start huge fires in the middle of town.
And yes, they do need to be ready to be called in at all hours. The men I know who have done this sort of thing before live and breath it.
This weekend sounds fine."
The captain says, "Excellent. You're currently on day shift; organize your people to transport the equipment tomorrow, and the next day we'll fight the fire. I'll have the wagons here tomorrow morning; I'm sending the requisition now. I'll also have my crew transport oil and wood to the site tonight, and I'll alert all commanders to tell their people to report for training to that location rather than here. Hopefully we won't have a fire in town while everything is out there, but we won't be much the worse off I think than we were before--just embarrassed."
I'll need your inventory of everything you're sending to the fire practice location, excluding firewood and oil.
--M. J. Young
Contingent upon what we have in-house (I don't have a complete inventory of what equipment we have, which would be nice), I would like to bring as much as my men can be convinced to bring of:
Buckets
Axes
Are my ladders in yet? Bring them.
Mining Helmets (I've been saying mining helmets every time you mention equipment for long enough that there's no excuse for us not to have them by now)
Do we have any first-aid kits? Just in case... I'll make sure I have some cash on me. One of my healing spells requires it, so there you go.
We need bigger wagons. I'll need to rent some horse-drawn wagons.
First ladder was promised in a month, the second a month beyond that, so no, no ladders yet.
You have the use of the horse drawn wagons from central for the purpose of this training exercise, to move stuff to the site.
You have buckets, axes, mining helmets (these do not have lanterns on them). Although all the police units have first aid kits, no one supplied one to your new division yet, and no one thought to requisition one. The captain says he'll put in for one, but you won't have it for the weekend.
If everything is ready, you cart that equipment to the site and find some wood and a drum of oil waiting. The fire is officially tomorrow.
--M. J. Young
Ah.
Between the time of our deciding to have this fire exercise and the time of actually having this fire exercise, I was hoping we could find some derelict building to tear down, as a public service, and so we would have more scrap material to burn up. I'm guessing that didn't happen?
Either way, since I'm spending a night away from home, it looks like I'll have to actually sleep. That's... what, the second or third time in three years? How novel.
I think there were only a couple days between deciding to do it and doing it. You have put out feelers for such a building, and gotten a reply, but not in time to do anything about it.
I think the rest of the crew on your shift were planning on going home for the night and reporting here in the morning. That's an early start, certainly, but you don't have to camp out here if you don't wish to.
Either way, people will begin arriving at the training site an hour after sunrise.
--M. J. Young
Fine. Then I'll re-up my Remove Fatigue for the weekend and head out with the guys in the morning.
You arrive the next day; the Captain is there and most of the crew, with a few stragglers arriving late.
"O.K.," the captain says, "we have wood and we have a cask of oil. How do we want to build this fire? We can burn the whole cask, maybe in the center of the wood fire; or we can pour the oil on the wood. If we leave it in the cask, it won't burn until the fire breaches the oak somewhere, and that might be a while. If we pour it on the wood, we're going to lose some of it to the dirt, where it won't burn. I'm not certain what else we can do. What do you think?"
--M. J. Young
"We might dip the wood in the oil and then burn it, but at that point we're dealing with just a standard wood fire. Which isn't bad, it's just not much of a challenge. Maybe a good place to start, though. An exceptionally large wood fire is more or less the same as putting out an already-abandoned building.
I'm leery of putting the cask under the wood and burning the whole thing, only because that seems like a recipe for a really big explosion that we really can't predict when it will go off. It's not the kind of thing I want to do on a first try, probably not the kind of thing I would want to do ever until we have better facilities."
"Understood. Of course, we could pop an end off the cask, build the wood up around it, and then drop a torch on it. Let it burn for a bit, and the oil should catch fire pretty quickly even if we miss it with the torch. Then we'd have a container of oil burning in the midst of a wood fire, and with the top open it's not going to explode--although if it tips over, it's going to spread rather swiftly and flare up strong.
"I'm just trying to figure out how to make the best use of our training materials here. I understand not wanting an unanticipated situation, but that's what fires are inherently, and even if we put the oil aside and just burn the wood there are going to be unexpected developments."
--M. J. Young
"For our first exercise, I still think it's best if we start small. If you really insist on including both the wood and the oil in one gigantic blaze, then yes our best bet is an open cask under a pile of wood, just like that. Gives us a little risk, but hopefully nothing we can't handle."
"You're the boss on this," the captain says. "Whatever you want to try, that's what we'll do."
Assuming you want to go with the open cask under the wood pile, you get the men to open the cask, set it on flat ground, and build up a large pyre around and above it.
"Would you like to do the honors?" the captain asks, indicating the unlit fire.
--M. J. Young
"Thank you, sir."
And thus there was fire, and it was shiny.
... We do have something to light a fire with, right? I'm not sitting here rubbing sticks together or something?
- The man calls the waiter over and says, "Waiter, taste the soup."
The waiter asks, "What's the problem with the soup, sir?"
"Just taste it," the man insists.
"Does it have too much salt? Pepper? Is it not spicy enough?"
"Just, just taste the soup."
"Is it too hot? Too cold?"
"Would you please just taste it?"
The exasperated waiter says, "All right, I'll taste the soup. Where's the spoon?"
"Ah-hah!" exclaims the customer.
What do you think you are likely to have at hand for starting a fire, and/or what firestarting skills would you use in the present circumstance?
--M. J. Young
Flint and steel, I would imagine. I also have my pistol powder, if no one can come up with anything better. In fact given the need for expedience, I think a charge of gunpowder accelerating a flint-and-steel spark onto some oil-soaked wood would be the best course of action.
Using the spark from your gun (the design uses flint and steel to ignite the powder in the pan) you ignite powder and oil and get your tinder going. You now have a flame from which to build a fire, and with the help of a few of the others you start doing so.
It will take about five minutes to get it to a significant blaze around the oil cask.
--M. J. Young
I let it go, until it's nice and fiery.
I see what they do.
Do any of them have experience with fires? I forget if I asked.
While we're waiting for it to really get going, I'll take a brief census. Any suggestions on what to do about it? (I do, in fact, know what to do about it, but I want to see where their minds go.)
There have been fires occasionally, and at least the couple that came from your unit fought that fire with you some time back. The captain, too, has seen a few fires in his time.
At first they are looking to you and the captain for direction.
The first suggestion, supported by several voices, is to throw buckets of water on it. One of them, though, says this probably is not a good idea, because if the oil starts burning the water won't help at all. Shoveling dirt on the fire is what he suggests.
--M. J. Young
Dirt is indeed the better course of action - dirt will put out any sort of fire, while water will simply spread an oil fire. Since we know we are dealing with both oil and wood here, and since structural integrity isn't an issue, I'll instruct them to do with dirt.
My first instinct is to start at the outside and work my way in, but we'll see what they do; I'm honestly not sure if that is the best way or not.
One of them says, "We're going to have to clear some of this grass; no point in throwing grass on the fire, because it will just burn. So let's dig a ring around the fire, so we can get to the dirt."
They start doing this, working about eight to ten feet away from the flames. The fire continues to grow while they work.
"If this were a building," one of them complains, "that fire would be getting out of control while we did this."
"Right," says another. "And with the paving stones and such, finding enough dirt to throw on a building is going to be another problem."
Still, they get their ring created and start throwing dirt on the flames. From that distance, they're not all that accurate, but they begin reducing the fire gradually.
--M. J. Young
"So this presents us with both a problem and an opportunity. We can't go around digging up city streets, but what we can do is stockpile dirt, especially lightweight dirt, like sand. It wouldn't have to be a huge stockpile, just enough for a fire or two. I can't imagine oil fires being that common, especially not unexpected oil fires like this one."
Once they have the grass dug up and the wood beginning to get under control, I'll TK Pulse the barrel in a direction where no one is standing, so we'll have an oil fire, but not catch anyone in it.
The fire burns cleanly as they work around it. Then you manage to push the barrel exactly as you want it, and it falls over into the wood, stopping in a position that allows about half the oil to pour out through the flames and the other half to start burning inside the barrel.
Your team tackles the oil spill quickly and directly, and soon has everything contained and controlled, and gradually manages to get it extinguished. The oil in the barrel takes a bit of time to finish burning out, but although part of the barrel burns away you don't get a second spill from it.
There is now a smouldering pile of charred wood and ash, and it's early afternoon.
--M. J. Young
Good. I call for lunch, and while we're eating I look around for more stuff to burn. Do we have enough wood for a second round of this? Perhaps a man-sized sack of sand to use as a rescuing dummy? Hmmm... going to have to invest in some quality burlap when we get back into town.
There is a tavern within a mile, which in this world is pretty close, and the crew retires there to overwhelm the innkeeper with food and drink orders. You are out of wood, but the captain figures that you can crowd into the dining room and talk about what you all learned and how you might do better next time.
--M. J. Young
Sure, a working lunch sounds fine. For the most part I'll let the crew rest, unless they have anything interesting to put in. Otherwise I'll conspire with the captain over a bowl of stew and some mead.