Fire Station Tour

It's a rainy Friday morning and we had big plans to catch up on some laundry, cleaning and homeschooling. But that all changed when I got an email this morning inviting all homeschooling families to a tour of the fire station. We ditched the rest of our plans and raced through breakfast to get to the fire house by 10am. I'll bet the short notice and the cold rainy weather kept many families from coming out, because it was just us and another family there. Joshua was so excited to see his friend Piper there. She is a homeschooling first-grader and goes to AWANA on Wednesday nights as well. They also like to play together at Kids Fit N Fun on Thursdays.

Here is Megan holding a fire fighter's helmet. It weighs at least 20 lbs.

Here is Joshua trying on special suit the fire fighters wear when they are called to the airport for a fire. Notice Daniel helping Joshua get dressed.
Daniel was just adorable in his fire fighter jacket checking out the station. They even gave him a Kodiak Fire Station sticker to put over the generic fire fighter emblem on the chest of his jacket, so that he would look official.

It was really neat to be the only people in the fire station. We got to see where they keep the hoses and how they dry the hoses after they are used.

Here is Joshua and Piper. Some of the pictures are a little grainy because the lighting in the fire station is tough to work with. There are a lot of windows and everything is reflective, making it a nightmare to figure out whether or not to use the flash!

The kids got to take a sneak peek at the newest ladder truck. This truck has only been in Kodiak for less than 2 months. It has not been out on a call yet. We learned that the 'old' ladder truck was sent to another firestation in Elizabeth City.

Here is a picture of the two nice fire fighters and all the kids. It was wonderful for them to take the time to answer all of our questions. We are already working on trying to find a nice way to thank them.

Here are a couple of the trucks. The yellow trucks are used for airport fires and the red trucks are used for structural fires. But only in Kodiak. We learned that different places have different colored fire trucks. Some even have white fire trucks.


We also got to see that the fire fighters sleep at the fire station for 2 days and then go home for 2 days. We saw where they cook, and eat and watch TV. We learned that they have to exercise every day because they need to be strong to help people and wear all of their heavy gear. One of the fire fighters put on the air mask and showed us how fire fighters can look and sound scary when they are in their gear, but they are really trying to help.

It was a real treat to hear the different alarms that ring through-out the station for the different types of calls. We learned that even though they are 'fire fighters' they also work hard to save people in non-fire situations, such as people that get hurt hiking or 4-wheeling. We got to look at the giant map of the base. The fire fighters were wonderful with allowing us to stop and explore all the areas of the fire station. Piper and Joshua are both learning different things about maps. Joshua is learning how to use the compass and legends on maps to learn where things are, and Piper is learning how to read maps. We spent a few minutes looking for things on the big map.


And just think...we are going back tomorrow for the Open House games and safety demonstrations. We are so lucky!