Semiserious Chefs

We got to see a hydrant in use when there was a fire in our neighborhood,

This unit uses our most common resource, ‘The Fundamentals of Fire Fighting Skills’ (FFS), but also finally dives more heavily into ‘Fire Service Pump Operator: Principles and Practice’ (PO). For review the ‘Barron’s: Firefighter Exams’ has many tests. These books and other helpful resources are discussed in more detail on the Orientation Page, while the Fire Fighting Skills Homepage also outlines (with links as we go along) each of the units we will cover if you want more information.

So how did it go for us?!

These Universal Discharge Hoses are PERFECT for Firefighter Play. They couple just like real fire hose.

First off, I was more than thrilled to finally find a good hose to replicate fire hose. When I began to plan this curriculum I just assumed I would be able to buy a used fire hose, which you can, but shipping it to Alaska ($$$) made the idea unattainable. Now that we have visited a few stations it could have been possible to try and finagle an old one personally, but in reality the blue hoses I found on Amazon have been absolutely perfect! (And Cheap!) They are 50 feet each and couple together just like real fire hose. They lay/roll flat, and with 100 feet combined we have plenty to play with. They are also not as heavy. For an older child, using a length of small diameter real fire hose might be plausible, but for a 6 year old it really would have been too much weight to be any fun. These discharge hoses only weigh 9 pounds each. MUCH more manageable.

An example of our cement tub ‘hose bed.’ A split load (Flat and Horseshoe) for a forward and/or reverse lay.

When I originally planned things out I had the idea of building a small truck bed frame to practice loading hose. Really it could be as simple as an area marked out with tape on the carpet, but we quickly found that a cement mixing tub we had lying around made a perfect little tire truck bed. You can load the hose neatly in it just like the bed of a real truck, and it slides nicely on the carpet, snow, or grass to replicate an engine driving forward for hose lays.

The only real difficulty we’ve had about this has been our current season of spring mud. I look forward to things drying out and the lawn filling in so that we can load and lay our play hose using the length of the back yard instead of our small living room. Another thing I am looking forward to with warmer weather; practicing the CPAT test ‘Hose Drag.’ I’m going to make it more fun by having our daycare friends try their hand at it for some friendly competition. This is a great way to incorporate some PE time into the curriculum.

Lastly, perfectly timed, we visited a couple fire stations while on vacation (yup we do that) and the guys in Nice happened to be ‘playing’ with their new rig when we came by so they let Nathan try out their hose. That was really wonderful. He had also played with a hose once quite a while ago when we planned a visit to our local station with the daycare kids. They surprised us with a hose set up for the kids to knock over a road cone. Great stuff! Just as I’ve said before, fire fighters love their job and generally love children. At every station we’ve visited they have been more than accommodating for a curious little boy.