Firestation Open Day

Another family fun packed Saturday which has left is all feeling very tired. First it was off to Forest Glade Football Club for Joshua, then Chelmsford Fire Station for there annual open day, then off to Papermill Lock for a spot of kayaking and then finally home for a well earned BBQ! The local Audi dealer was supporting the open day at the firestation so Joshua got to have a sit in this beautful Audi R8.

Riding along in my automobile.

Once in the firestation they had an open fire engine for the children to climb in and sit on for photo's etc. The boys started off exploring the back seats before heading to the drivers cab.

Joshua scanning all the equipment loaded in the fire engine.

Fireman Joshua t the rescue.

Would you feel safe if you called the fire brigade out and these two little Herbter Sherberts turned up?

Check out Brandon wearing a real firemans hat.

In addition to the real firemans hat, both boys were treated to a toy hat as modelled here by Joshua.

It was good to see all the emergency vehicles on display including the big cherry picker, fire engines, fire cars etc. I was surprised to see that they also had a few fire ribs on display as well. Having recently had experience of kayaing, Joshua felt quite at home on this and showed excellent technique with the oar. 

Row, row, row you boat............

This was the cherry picker fire engine which they dropped teddy bears on parachutes from.

No surprises that an event like this has kids bouncy castles on hand to deprive your pockets of yet more of your hard eant money. But its all for a good cause to support the fire service. We thought the boys would have been all bounced out having had 2.5 hours bouncing on 7 or 8 different castles at the Abacus School Summer Fete yesterday, but no.

The cherry picker going up to drop some more parachuting teddy bears.

Only a small area of the inside of the fire station was open to the public. But it was good to get in there and show the boys some of the older fire fighting equipment on display and to use the infamous firemans pole. 

Me showing the boys and old fire hose nozzle. Believe it or not this was so heavy that Brandon couldn't even lift this one. Let alone the pressure of blasting water out of it.

Joshua demonstrating how to squirt a smaller fire hose.

And then an even smaller one which is almost Brandon size.

Last but not least was the firemans poles. Brandon seemed to enjoy these the most and was full of questions about just how the fireman get up and down them. 

Joshua managing on his own.

Brandon needed a little support as he could not control his bodyweight coming down.

At the open day they also had a good fire demonstration showing a typical chip pan fire which I guess is most common for households. They showed the one thing not to do which is throw a glass of water onto burning oil - the net result was a blast of flames shooting about 15ft up into the air. I think the boys were a bit shocked and startled by the blast and heat you could feel from the flames. As the fireman did the demonstration it was really good to hear them reinforcing what the kids cartoon Firman Sam teaches them, and that is;

When there is a fire you:

GET OUT

STAY OUT

GET THE FIRE BRIGADE OUT