Citizens Fire Academy Goes Hands-On

Compare it to Christmas Eve when giddy children can barely contain their restless anticipation for a glimpse of the man in the big red suit.

In this case, however, it was a gathering this past week of a dozen adult Citizens Fire Academy cadets in a breakout session for the course’s Week 3 instruction on fire science and live demonstrations of firefighting equipment and apparatus.

But rather the man in the big red suit delivering toys in his fabled reindeer-driven sleigh, it was a real life delivery of big red trucks from Johns Creek Fire Department Division Chief of Training and Fire Safety, Chris Coons.

Joining Coons were his uniformed colleagues – the ‘Shakerag Sharks’ – of Johns Creek Fire Department 62 parading their state-of-the-art stable of rescue vehicles and the myriad tools of the their life-saving trade that would turn a gadget geek green with envy.  

And for those cadets who dared: a ride nearly 75 feet up in JCFD’s big red sleigh of its own – ladder truck 61’s hydraulic powered telescoping bucket lift capable of supporting 1,000 pounds of firefighters and their equipment and extending a full 100 feet above ground while swiveling 180 degrees.

“This is really great!” exclaimed cadet Scott Anderson, who was among the first group to slip into karabiner belts, step up in the grounded bucket, clip onto a safety loop and then head skyward where the setting westward sun cast a tawny glow across the tree line.  “It’s nice and bouncy when you reach the top.”

JCFD command kept its promise about cadets going hands on in this inaugural eight-week course to give ordinary citizens extraordianry access to JCFD operations when it wheeled out its show stoppers in front of the Station 62.

While the 80,000-pound ladder truck’s massive telescoping lift and chrome plated side supports were marvels of modern mechanical engineering in and of themselves, the company’s 500-gallon engine pumper truck was equally impressive.

Side compartments offered a lesson in logistics, as powered and manual cutting tools were tactically assembled by weight and instant accessibility. The truck’s main tank was situated deep inside its rear center chassis while approximately 2,000 feet of high-pressure hose was coiled at the ready – all perfectly balanced to aid in vehicle stability.

The roomy cabin of this 46,000-pound workhorse looked more like an airliner cockpit with its array of lighted dials, gauges and heads-up computer displays.

And it smelled of remnant smoke, like blackened logs from a long abandoned campfire pit that survived a final burn.

A typical first responder, JCFD’s Quick Response Vehicle, an ambulatory unit, is dispatched to stabilize even the most critically injured patient until Johns Creek’s contracted ambulance service, Rural/Metro, can arrive to assume the call.

And rounding JCFD’s rescue vehicle repertoire was the Special Operations Unit that focuses on confined space deployments and river rescue operations.

JCFD’s rescue operations also includes an 8,500-pound hitch mount air trailer designed for on-scene use to refill firefighters’ air packs in case an incident becomes so large and time intensive that their current pack loads expire.

Even the command vehicles, a fleet of four-door Chevrolet Silverado pick-up trucks, are packed from bed to cabin with life-saving gear should they be first to arrive on scene. 

All told, JCFD operates:

• Two ladder trucks with 100-foot extension capability
• Three pumper trucks each capable an output of 2,000 gallons per minute.
• Two transport-capable quick response ambulances
• Two rescue boats, including a new inflatable model used for back up.
• Several command vehicles – Chevrolet Silverado crew cab models – with additional gear and equipment.

But before Coons and company hosted the ultimate show-and-tell session second only to the city’s annual Public Works Day event, his classroom instruction on fire science provided cadets a condensed two hour version of the course taught to JCFD rookies over two days. Or as Coons put it, “burning to beat the band.”

Everything from common causes of structure fires to how construction materials burn gave cadets a glimpse of JCFD’s plan of attack to uphold its oath to preserve life and property.

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