The Steamtug Blog

They said you’d never make it…

by on Dec.16, 2015, under General

Mack fire truck 1932I remember working at Shell Geelong and a crew got sent to the world famous Texas A&M fire training school. I said I needed to go too, but was told… “Mark, you will never, ever, ever go there! Forget it!” DSC_0831But here I am! As I drove past Shell Oil’s Deer Park refining complex, and thinking how big it is! Especially as I owned part of it (share holder… enough shares to claim ownership of the flag pole out the front!). It brought back memories of when I was a pimply faced school boy.

My best mate Scott, well his father worked as a plant manager for Shell. He later nearly was my boss, but retired before I worked on his unit. But he got sent overseas, to a far away land called Texas to attend fire school training. I remember him coming home with cow skins, cow horns, a big daggy “un-australian” hat called a Stetson, and some amazingly hot sauce all the way from Texas, called Tabasco. What an exotic collection. It all seemed so foreign to me then, but I have learned plenty since then. Like for example, after living in Africa 5 years and becoming addicted to African goat pepper soup, Tabasco is for kinder kids to put on their fish fingers! And it doesn’t even come from Texas, but here in Louisiana where I now live.

The Texas A&M fire school, was established back in the 1930’s in response to the growing oil and gas industries that grew up around the Texas Oil image. The school was, and still is a part of the A&M university nearby and has expanded to an amazing array of equipment, used in fire fighting scenarios, fire hose handling techniques, emergency rescue, confined space emergencies, smoke house rescues, rail disasters, incident command courses and a new course just developed to cover the new interest in the USA in Liquified natural gas. The school is world famous!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAYou can’t even begin to describe how bloody hot that fire is! LNG is so ready to evaporate and feed the fire, and it burns so cleanly without smoke that the fire becomes huge, and the radiant heat that it throws off is immense!   I did an off shore oil platform course a few years ago in Malaysia which was an excellent training school, where all the North Sea oil platform people learn their stuff. But it was nothing compared to this!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo I took my shift with me for this training, brought them dinner and a few beers and we partied together strengthening those unique bonds that happen in the shift family that forms with work crews. We had a great time despite me trying to maintain an air of sensibility and demonstrate leadership, while ensuring all my little ducks were safely home in bed at the end of the night. Still managed to have a great time.

Train crash! Call the fire brigade!Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeyadont touch that!OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA


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