West Metro Fire

Rigging for Rescue recently traveled to Colorado's Front Range to work with a group of firefighters from multiple agencies around the state.  The course was hosted by West Metro Fire and was a great training with highly skilled participants.  Included in the exercises were difficult edge transitions with a vertically oriented litter, a deflection line, work with artificial high directionals, and a two-attendant moderate slope evacuation, as seen in the gallery below.  We can't wait to return in 2013!

Good times with the slow pull machine

In November of last year, the Rescue Program Coordinator from Rocky Mountain Fire visited us in Ouray with an interesting question: can wildland firefighters use their fire hose as anchor material in an improvised rescue scenario?

The following videos show two pulls that we did on a .75" forestry hose (commonly referred to as a "garden hose") and a 1.5" single jacket forestry hose; both samples were heavily used prior to testing.

The .75" hose was configured as a wrap two pull two with a ring bend, and broke mid-strand at 6.83 kN.

The 1.5" hose was configured as a single strand anchored at each end with an overhand knot, and broke mid-strand at 18.93 kN.

Both of these are considered "quick look" tests and are far from comprehensive. Nonetheless, it's fun to see things break.