Standby...

Recently, I almost did not go for any incident at all. Which is good, but also makes my duties sort of repetitive and boring.

But still, if everyone is safe, everyone is happy!

As you can see in this crappy picture, in times of peace, our proud fire engine, PL441 (PL - Pump Ladder) will be on standby. The shutter in front of the pumper is always closed unless there is a dispatch to prevent trespassers...

The motorcycle on the far side is FR441, or more affectionately referred to as "Romeo 441". It belongs to the Fast Response Paramedic. Yep, paramedic on a bike! This enables us to administer pre-hospital treatment as fast as possible even during peak hours. These paramedics ride crazy fast! But safely, of course! It's a Super 4 after all.

The picture closer to us is FB441, one of the Fire Bikes in station. Fire Bikes always go out in tandem. Typically, control will dispatch FB441 and FB442 together. If only one Fire Bike is available, then the Fire Bike will go out with a pumper. Fire Bikes are cool... I like the smooth noise that they make, especially when the ignition in turned on and the silent vroom when they dash out of station. Not to mention that they have pretty lights too. Anyway, like the FR, the FB was also introduced for fast response even during peak times, which will enable us to get fire ground info and mitigate whatever is going on as quickly as possible.

In this other crappy picture are the other 3 appliances in station. (The third one is barely visible at the back on the right of the picture).

The closest to us is the Combined Platform Ladder, CP441. Probably one of my favourite appliance for various reasons. This rig is dispatched for high rise fires, ship fires etc. Anyway, this the cage can reach a working distance of 32m, which theoretically is about 10 storeys high. This appliance is a hot favourite for station visitors. If you come, you might be lucky enough to get a ride in the cage!

Next to the CPL is the Breathing Apparatus Tender, callsign BA441. As the name implies, it carries a great number of breathing apparatuses and air cylinders. It is dispatched when there is a fire involving premises with high fire load eg. factories. In other words, it only goes out when there is a potential that the fire is going to be big. Therefore, the BAT rarely goes out of station, which is one of the reasons why the BAT is my least favourite appliance...

The appliance that you can barely see at the back is the Tracked Fire Vehicle, TFV, callsign TF441. This thing goes out of station even at a rarer frequency compared to the BAT. Why? It is designed to fight bush fires. It's actually quite a cool appliance, imo with it's tracked wheels akin to a tank and the water monitor perched on top of the cabin. Since most bush fires in Singapore are of negligible scale (eg. small patch of grass on fire), this vehicle is rarely tested under the scale that it was initially built for. It did do it's bidding during the recent Bukit Batok bush fire earlier this year, but apparently throughout the end, its performance was a bit disappointing. Maybe it's because the hill was too steep anyway. And most of my seniors seem to agree that this vehicle has a lot of room for improvement.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you guys enjoyed my little Station 44 virtual trip. Come to my station on Saturdays! We are open 9am to 12pm. Do come early or you'll miss the good stuff. Maybe next time I'll risk showing other pictures of interesting stuff in the station...