Monday 30^th of August 2004 and I had to wake up 06:30. I had my tea and pumpernickel bread while watching the news. After my shower I took a walk to the bus stop. 30 minutes walking in the morning helps when you want to burn some calories.

I lived at Rosenhill while doing the fire fighting course in Gothenburg, I had planned to stay there when signing off Framnäs but their apartment was occupied when I arrived.

They had some football tournament so I had to live at Barken Viking over the weekend. But I moved in at Rosenhil when the tournament was over. I did my medical examination and I had the weekend to rest a little before my fire fighting course. Of course, there had been time to go to a China restaurant Sunday evening and I had been with my friend at IKEA to buy some stuff for him.

On the bus I meet 1 guy I knew from Bro Nelly. I recognised him on the bus but I wasn't sure.
- Are you going to the fire fighting course? He asked me.
- Yes, have you been working on Bro Nelly? I asked.
We got off the bus at Torslandakorset and we meet 1 girl there. I knew her as well. I had relieved her on Tärnvik as Chief Officer a few years ago.

They came from the fire station with a mini bus to pick us up and they drove us to the training field at Torslanda.

We started the day in the classroom. We started the course by listened to our teacher in the class room and he explained about breathing, lungs and health. We were thought on how to breathe and different techniques in smoke diving.
Most people dying in a fire die because of the dangerous smoke and not the fire.

Air contains different gases of nearly constant concentrations. The atmospheric gases of steady concentrations are as follows:
Nitrogen= 78,084%
Oxygen=20,946%
Argon=0,934%
Neon=0,0018%
Helium=0,000524%
Methane=0,0002%
Krypton=0,000114%
Hydrogen=0,00005%
Nitrous oxide=0,00005%
Xenon=0,0000087%
But in our daily speak we say that the air consists of 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen and 1% of other gases. This was interesting


As said there is 21% oxygen in the air we breathe and there is only about 17% oxygen in the air we exhale. 4% oxygen had become 4% carbon dioxide. So when we do the kiss of life we blow down air with only 17% oxygen and 4% carbon dioxide. The air coming back from the unconscious person only contains 13% oxygen and 8% carbon dioxide. So it's important to get fresh air between every “kiss of life” otherwise both will die of the carbon dioxide. It will be like breathing in a plastic bag.

We tried our BA sets and before soon it was time for lunch.


When we came back from lunch we started to kick ass on the training field. we were 3 groups. 1 with red helmets, 1 with yellow and 1 with blue helmets. I was in the blue group and Blue group started with hand held fire extinguishers used to fight small fires. Small fires are classified according to the nature of the burning material.

Class A fires involve wood, paper, and the like
Class B fires involve flammable liquids, such as cooking fats and paint thinners
Class C fires are those in electrical equipment
Class D fires involve highly reactive metals, such as sodium and magnesium.

Water is suitable for putting out fires of only one of these classes (A), though these are the most common. Fires of classes A, B, and C can be controlled by carbon dioxide, halogenated hydrocarbons such as halons (We are not allowed to use Halon anymore. Halon destroys the ozone layer.), or dry chemicals such as sodium bicarbonate or ammonium dihydrogen phosphate. Class D fires ordinarily are combated with dry chemicals.

We used powder and carbon dioxide extinguishers to put out petrol fires. We started with the powder extinguishers and after that we tried the carbon dioxide extinguishers.








Last moment of this exercise was to see if we could extinguish a fire in a room only by open the door slightly and release a powder extinguisher through the opening. It worked very nice.

When there is a fire in the room the hot air moves up and the fire sucks new cold air with oxygen along the floor to the fire.

In the drag we can crawl in and rescue a person. We can spray water or powder in to the room and the fire will suck the water or powder to the fire and extinguish the fire. On the picture below we can see the hot air and smoke coming out. On the picture we can also see the area under the smoke. This is where the new air with oxygen comes in.

If smoke goes out there must be something coming in to the container.

After this first moment it was time for smoke diving practice. We donned our breathing apparatus and we entered the containers. They have built a ship accommodation, well, something that should be like an accommodation by containers on the training field. We have to enter and search for missing persons in the cabins. 0 visibility and it are not easy to find anything in there. We searched all the cabins and we found 4 dummies.





Last moment before going home for the day was to extinguish liquefied petroleum gas. 2 teams with a fire hose and a fog fighter. We approached the fire behind a water shield and 1 man closed the valve to the liquefied petroleum gas. You SHALL not extinguish liquefied petroleum gas.

You must close the valve. If you extinguish the fire the gas is still coming out and if the gas caught fire again thing gets from bad to worse. Then it's better if the liquefied petroleum gas can burn under controlled forms.











After the gas fire exercises it was time to go home. First day had come to an end and it was a tleast to say nice to leave Karholmens övningsfält behind


But I had a few things to do in the city. I had to buy new Höganäs ceramics (Plates and cups and stuff) for my new kitchen. And I went with my friend to do some shopping for my new kitchen, expected to be ready at the end of september.

I bought a Höganäs keramik for about 2000 US$ and they would send it to me in Bangkok. I also bought pots and pans etc and I'm looking forward to be ready with my kitchen. What a disappointment the job with my kitchen had turned out to be, but I now have the pots when the kitchen is ready.

It was nice to come back to Rosenhill and my tea. I made a pot of tea in my kitchen and I realxed before going to the computer room. Bro Jupiter was in port and the Cook came to visit me at Rosenhill. I was sitting in the computer room when I saw someone running around the apartment. I got out and I saw the Cook from Bro Jupiter knocking on the door.
-Aladdin!! Aladdin, where are you!!

We were sitting down talking about the latest from Bro Jupiter. The girl working in the coffee shop had asked me to take a picture of her and put on my web page.


And we know by now how much our Cook likes to be on my webpage, so I said that I could take a picture of them together.

Rosenhill have a car service for sailors in port and they were bringing back our Cook to the ship at 21:30. But he had time to inspect my new cocking pots that I had bought.
- They look nice, he said.
- You have the chance to try them when you are cooking at my house warming party, I said.
He will come to Bangkok to do the cooking at the house warming party when my place is ready, if it ever gets ready! When he left I was off to my computer. I had to upload the latest before bed time. Make sure you come back tomorrow for more fire fighting extravaganza!!

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Tuesday 31^st of August 2004 and I was up at 06:30. I had my tea and pumpernickel bread while watching the news. I had planned for a walk to the bus stop but I knocked my toe in to my bag and I had to limp out of the door and there wasn't any walking.

We started the day in the classroom. We talked about chemicals and on how fires spread. After lunch we started to practice on the training field.

As yesterday I was in the group with blue helmets and we started with the foam.

Foam is used to suffocate the fire. No oxygen and no fire. We extinguished 2 fires and it worked very nice. It's just to come close enough so we can put the foam on the fire.
It's getting very hot when coming close to the fire so we have to stay low. But we can apply the heavy foam from about 20 meter.























When we were ready with the foam it was our turn for the smoke diving. We had to climb down a ladder and find our way to the stairway. From there we had to go down and find the door to the room with the fire. It was 0 visibility. I went in as first man in our group and when I found the door I opened the door and sprayed the room with water.

The water turned to steam and it was not possible to see anything. When I opened the door second time I could see a little of the fire and sprayed again. Third time I could see nothing.

We had to climb up again, heavy. Our breathing apparatus weight about 20kg and of course, to be almost 100 years old don't help. Boiler suit and raining cloths on and I'm lucky to be in a good condition. I knew my healthy lifestyle would pay off some day.











Our last drill was a chemical accident. We had to fit 3 man in chemical suits and BA sets. They had to rescue 2 men from the container and extinguish the fire. They rescued the people in the container and we were ready. We got our certificates and I was of to Rosenhill. Now my holiday starts and I'm off to Sue tomorrow.

It will be very nice, but first 1 night of sleep. I have been up very early every morning and I need some sleep.

I'm off to Thailand and it is just to click HERE and you will be smack in the middle of that adventure. But hang on! Let's have a look at the slide show below from the fire fighting course before we swing over to the next page! Might be worth it!





OK, it has come to my knowledge that we have senior citizens visiting my web page. How hard can it be? So it's not very easy for them to see the blue coloured links to the next page.

Jiffy (also jiff) noun [in SING.] informal a moment: we'll be back in a jiffy. ORIGIN late 18th cent.: of unknown origin. So as you understand, in a jiff pretty much depends on your internet.

So I put a “Next” button here and I hope that there isn't any problem to understand how to use that one. So just CLICK the “Next” button on your left hand side and you will be on the next page in a jiff!

Marunong ka mag-tagalog? Walang problema! Magpunta sa kabilang pahina pindutin ang “NEXT” button sa itaas

Faites vous parlez le français? Pas de problème! Pour arriver à la page suivante faites s'il vous plaît un déclic le bouton “Next” ci-dessus!

Haga usted dice el español? No hay problema! Ver la siguiente página sólo hacer clic el botón “Next” encima!

Farla parla l'italiano? Non problemi! Per vedere la prossima pagina lo scatto per favore giusto Il bottone “Next” sopra

Sprechen sie Deutsch! Kein problem! Wenn Sie die folgende Seite sehen wollen gerade klicken der Knopf “Next” oben!

คุณพูดภาษาไทยได้ไหม ไม่มีปัญหา ถ้าคุณต้องการไปหน้าถัดไป ให้กดปุ่ม “Next” ข้างบนนี้

Вы говорите по-русски? NJET PROBLEMA! Просто нажмите синюю кнопку "Next" с левой стороны и Вы моментально переместитесь на следующую страницу!

E ni Svenskar och inte förstår Engelska så ska ni skämmas. J och Björn, med det menar jag inte att alla mina stavfel ska ältas varje gång vi träffas.

Well, the flag of Skåne, just a BONUS flag.