Emergency training gets hot: with new professionalism, fishermen take up more safety training

摘要

On a hot August afternoon, orange flames pour out of an engine room stairwell, the blackened steel and blistered paint attesting to the hundreds of fires it has endured. Outside, next to rows of red fire extinguishers, an instructor for Fremont Maritime Services adjusts valves on the propane manifold that feeds the flames. To heighten the sense of realism, white gas is mixed in with the propane to add smoke and odor to the conflagration. An alarm sounds. A fire team suits up slowly and methodically. It's the first time they've donned 2,000 dollar worth of firefighting equipment--boots, suits, masks, helmets, and oxygen bottles--and then had to prove the integrity of their gear and their own mettle in action. In this case, the fire they battle is in the scorched companionway of the Fire Dragon, Fremont Maritime's mocked-up training vessel. The fire is located behind a waterproof door, which is hot. The team cools it with a spray of water. A student reaches for the latch, and Senior Instructor Lannie ("Walt") Walters, who once commanded fire teams on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, barks at him to crouch down before opening it. Dragging a hose behind them, three students head towards the blaze. A member of the support team reports their progress with a handheld VHF radio to fellow students on the Fire Dragon's bridge, one deck above. The fire is extinguished quickly, and as steam rises off the steel, Walters moves in among the fire-fighters to critique their performance and monitor equipmentremoval. Alternately grinning and glowering, he's encouraging but hard-nosed. The students--tug crewmen, NOAA employees, guys fresh out of maritime school, a Bering Sea crabber--are drenched in sweat. When they fight the next fire, Walters will time them. This kind of learning experience isn't cheap, but it's the law. More and more fishermen and commercial mariners are enrolling in safety courses to comply with regulations that kicked in this year. The Fire Dragon and other training facilities locatedon Fremont Maritime's new campus in Seattle represent an investment of about 1 million dollar. Jon Kjaerulff, who founded the school in 1989, says the boom in the safety training business last year made the new campus possible.