FIRE PRACTICE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21518, 15 June 1933, Page 8

FIRE PRACTICE

JUMPING SHEET IN USE / THRILLING RESCUES MADE INGENIOUS SMOKE HELMETS It has been said that, with the improved efficiency of modern fire-alarm systems and fire-fighting methods, the day of the large spectacular fire in city areas Will soon come to an end. Since the Thames Hotel outbreak of February 19. 1919, when one of the guests was bu,rned to death, there has been no sgrious fire in Queen Street, and while there have been outbreaks of considerable magnitude in the surrounding business area, they have, with the exception of the petrol store fire at Freeman's Bay on April 1, 1928, when a fireman lost his life, been remarkably free from serious injury to limb. But at the Auckland Fire Brigade station in Pitt Street the most efficient and up-to-date fire-fighting unit in New Zealand is prepared for the worst. No disaster could be so great that it could not be faced with every chance of success. The mechanisation of the equipment is complete and the available man power highly trained and competent. of the equipment was taken but yesterday for demonstration purposes. The jumping sheets, last used in Auckland at the hat factory fire in Rutland Street on August 20, 1930, when the last girl to leave the burning building was saved by this means, were tested for strength, and a man jumped into them from an upstairs window. This test is not exactly' a popular one with the man selected to do the jumping, as his companions holding the sheet sometimes take it into their heads to toss him a few times before letting him down. The Fireman's Chair Several methods of rescuing unconscious people from burning buildings werfedeinoustrated. Firemen took it in turns* fb rescue each other from upstairs windows, throwing the "victims" over their shoulders and scrambling down telescopic ladders with their burdens. The "fireman's chair knot" was also shown. This takes the form of a rope si knotted that a person can be underneath the armpits and knees as though seated in a chair. In this position he is lowered out of a window or from the roof of a building, guided out from the walls by a rope held by the firemen in the road. The ladders used by the Auckland brigade are of various sizes, the smaller being 28ft. in length when expanded, operated by haijd and capable of reaching second-floor windows. The largest ladder/ operated on an electric turntable, mounted on wheels, is 87ft. long when fully extended and will reach' the } highest windows of the tallest building in Auckland. // Artificial Smoke A smoke-filled room added realism vesterday to smoke-helmet practice. ' sfc-aw provided the smoke and when the room was filled with choking fumes, man donned an asbestos mask fitted with glass windows for purposes of vision and walked into the chamber. A pair of simple hand-bellows, operated outside the building by a companion, kept,/ him supplied with fresh air by means of a pipe-line, and a safety rope, tied round the waist, was held by a third. ''That is in case he should drop down an open lift-well or through a fallen-in ceiling," it was explained. Aftey the asbestos helmets came a man with an oxygen smoke helmet, similar to the helmets used in mines. On his back was strapped a cylinder t . containing enough oxygen to last for, two hours. In addition, he had attacjied to his body a cartridge containing potash to absorb the carbon dioxide . from his lungs. This form of smoke » helmet was used in the fire on the •steamer Kent in J 925 and in the subsequent/ outbreak at the back of Cooke's premises, Queen Street, when it was necessary for the firemen to work in dense ammonia fumes. ' /Testing Powerful Pumps Tke brigade's pumps, which are used jn suppressing fires on steamers and ■ * buildings near the waterfront, are tested regularly. One pump is capable of pumping 800 gallons of water a minute; the other lifts 350 gallons a These pumps are used to "boost" the water from fire mains whe/e the flow is sluggish. They were employed to great advantage in the big fire in Winstone's gum store on the waterfront on July 17, 1932. The latest appliance .with which the Auckland brigade has been equipped is .the foamite apparatus for dealing in - a scientific manner with oil fires. It has been used several times in practice, but hao not yet had its baptism in a real fire. /