Is it Cookie Day Yet?

Frostnip, Purple K, foam parties, rugby, aborted medevacs, auroras and nacreous clouds.

It's been a busy week. Or two. Or...more? I don't really know at this point. Time is really starting to blur right now. We've been working a lot of extra hours lately for many of the above reasons.

I'll try to explain them as best I can, one by one. Savvy? Sweet as.

To begin, I'll start with the frostnip. For those of you in a warmer place than here, frostnip is an early, reversible, stage of frostbite. It is in no way fun and it will sneak up on you without realizing it.

Continuing, we happened to be out at work one blustery day. We had just completed a few inspections and the weather was starting to turn bad again, which is not an uncommon occurrence here this time of year. (Bad weather here comes up fast, like a summer thunderstorm back home, and can last for days.)

Anyway, I was driving the engine, and we needed to get fuel before returning to quarters. So, a short drive over to the gasboys later I hopped out of my nice warm cab to add fuel.

I wasn't even outside for five minutes. The diesel pumps are pretty quick, and I only put in 16 gallons. I stood there suffering with my back to the wind (face uncovered but turned away from the wind with my collar up) until the pump finally stopped. I jumped back in the cab, and the first thing I hear is my lieutenant telling me that my nose is completely white, a clear indication of frostnip. After I let loose a few less than pleasant words about myself being less than genius that day, we went back home.

I got lucky, though. Since I never got the pins and needles feeling that comes with rewarming the affected area, it wasn't full thickness. My nose will probably peel some later, but it has come back just fine.

Lesson learned, I promptly went to the ship's store and purchased a nice, warm, and windproof face mask. It's been seeing a lot of use.

How cold was it, you ask? Probably hovering somewhere around -30F with windchills in the range of -80F.


Moving on, I'll explain about the foam party and purple k experience.

As I believe I mentioned earlier, we've been having issues with some of our crash trucks. These are unique, one-off systems that are largely untested due to the hazardous materials issues that arise when we discharge agent. However, due to some issues that arose with a truck fire we had a couple of weeks ago, we've been tearing down these systems and inspecting them for issues.

Without going into complicated mechanical details, I'll just say that certain important parts have a tendency to stick in the wrong position, causing problems (and resultant foam parties). Unfortunately for us, we're learning all of this the hard way.

The first time we learned this, we were just coming back into the firehouse after doing some inspections. I was backing the engine up, and the Kiwi kept telling me to stop. After the second time, I was left wondering what the hold up was until he came up and told me that Red 4 had discharged from the turret.

Several loud, less than polite terms were then made audible from myself.

It turned out that while our new mechanic and a lieutenant were working on the system, something stuck in the wrong position. Unfortunately for us, that something caused several hundred gallons of finished foam to spew across the bays, leaving us a mess to clean up.

Two hours, six people, a few pictures, shovels and mops later, we had finally cleaned up the mess. Pleased we were not, but we were done.

Proceed 24 hours later. Then repeat this entire process when something else failed in a similar fashion. It proceeded to dump the rest of the 300 gallon foam tank onto the floor, though with some quick action, they were able to save about two 55 gallon drums of foam concentrate after a quick shutdown. Luckily for me, B shift was on, so I just had the pleasure of hearing about it at dinner.

Fast forward another 48 hours. I'm on my Kelly day (my extra day off every two weeks) and bored. So, I offer to come in to help with the mechanical demon of a truck sitting in the bay. This time we're not testing the foam system, which I was happy about, since it has had a less than spectacular track record in the previous week.

This time, we're testing the Purple K system. Purple K is a special fire extinguishing dry chemical powder often used in airport firefighting equipment. When used in conjunction with foam, it delivers a great one-two punch to fire. We use a slightly different type of Purple K that has an extremely bright and vivid purple dye added to be better able to see it in a fire situation.

Now, the Purple K system has not really had a history of issues. It's an older design that's been used for years in places around the world. Ansul has refined it into a system that we can even trust down in the frozen south. Unfortunately for us, however, we forgot that part of it runs through the other half of the system...

After a successful test of the turret operation by shooting the Purple K into a containment barrel and blowing it down (blowing down removes any leftover agent sitting in the lines) with only the normal mess, we were pleased to conclude the test a success. Thus deemed, I moved the containment barrel to the back so we could test the hand line.

Moving into position, the lieutenant I was working with flipped the switch to begin the hand line test. Upon this activation, the gurgling, whooshing, coughing sound unique to the turret was heard. Knowing doom was impending, he quickly shut the system back down. Unfortunately for us, once the system is charged, it has more than enough air flowing through to make a mess.

Looking forward to the turret, it coughed, hacked, and proceeded to puke a large, brilliant purple cloud. Within five seconds, the back half of the bay was a lovely shade of violet.

Much sweeping and mopping followed. We'll be finding more purple for weeks to come.

While we've been receiving the short end of the stick with these trucks lately, our daytime dispatcher has had the pleasure of seeing each of these events through her office window and not having to be involved with the cleanup.

I would've liked to have seen the jet of foam shooting across of the wave of purple that drifted by her window...


Rugby. This one is a short explanation. We watched the New Zealand All Blacks play the other day. They were up against the Wallabies of Australia in the final Tri-Nations game of the season. While the first half was disappointing, the stunning come from behind victory by the All Blacks was worth it. This win marked their tenth straight and they left as Tri-Nations champs (though they actually won this honor after their last match).


Auroras and nacreous clouds. I'll make this one short, too.

They are incredible.

Not much of an amazing story behind it, but I think you'll appreciate it better if I ever download my pictures.


So we have a medevac flight that's supposed to come down. It tried to come down yesterday, but failed due to rapidly deteriorating conditions out at Pegasus. I had an opportunity to read the Terminal Area Forecast for it, and it was amazing to see how fast the weather went from flyable conditions to horrible conditions. I think it was less than five minutes that made the difference.

Luckily I got to stay in town for the attempt yesterday. Red 4 decided it would be fun to puke glycol again, and made about a hundred yard mess behind itself. This is actually better than the typical half mile mess we end up with, but I still felt bad for the guys that had to go out and shovel it up. I know at least one of our guys came back with a little frostnip from it, though he'll be fine.

They tried to get the flight back in here today, but they canceled it very early on, for which I was appreciative, though I'm pretty sure the poor guy sitting in medical thinks differently.

We're trying again tomorrow. The forecast is supposed to be a bit nicer. I won't get to enjoy driving out to Pegasus and back, though. I'll be at sea ice training most of the day, a welcome escape of a two hour commute in a lumbering Chieftain.


That's about all I have for right now. I guess I'll fill you all in on my sea ice adventures later if I don't freeze to death first. In the mean time, I think I'll start putting together some ideas for my post-Ice travels.