The Right Tools for The Job

This weekend was HOT!🔥 Saturday was a training day for the Fire Department, and we did “live burn” training. We are fortunate in that there is an amazing training ground just up the road 10 minutes from us, and we really got to utilize it! Our Department participated in two of the training evolutions- the Hallway Burn and the Flashover Chamber. The Hallway is just that-a converted ConX (shipping container) with a hallway and a room at the end designed to have a fire set in it-it also has a mechanisms to hold OSB on the ceiling. So basically, the instructors light a fire, wait till it gets REALLY hot and rolling and sends in two person search team-their job is to find the fire and let the two man hose team know where it is, then continue to search any other rooms off the hallway. It was really cool-as in awesome, not temp😜- and we took turns running thru it as fast as we could, switching jobs each rotation. I figured out really fast that short legs and hose drags are NOT fast!!😂😂 Next was the Flashover-it is a simulation where again a fire is started and they use techniques of venting to get it hot and show the characteristics of fire. It is really something to see the “air” catch fire! So the two things these simulations had in common where heat and noise. The noise was interesting for me, and despite my worry I was able to communicate just fine. To deal with the heat, we had our turnout gear. That is we had the proper tools-which brings me to a unique build I had to do for work a couple weeks ago…

We had a situation at work that required a little out of the box solution. A door frame was twisting out of the block. To straighten the frame, we needed to clamp it back in place. The problem came from when a normal bar clamp is used with a lot of pressure, the force will tend to “twist” the clamp and it will not pull straight. My solution was to make a double sided clamp that could be tightened with a socket on an impact driver. The body was made of plate steel and gussets, and the clamping was made by welding two nuts together and sandwiching them in plates and running a 3/4” both thru it. It actually worked!! LOL below are the pics of the build and it in use.

So, each day I learn the importance of having the right tools for the job, and sometimes we have to make them. The right tools can make the impossible possible -it doesn’t matter if it’s Firefighting, construction or everyday life. 😜😁