Fire Station Tour with the Wolf Den

Peter's wolf den had the opportunity to do a field trip to the Fire Station on the base at Yokosuka. Fortunately, I was able to leave the other kids at home with my mom so that I could go with Peter. It was a fascinating tour. First the kids gathered in a conference room and one of the firefighters talked with the boys about fire safety and went through different scenarios that they could face with a potential fire. As I sat there I learned a thing or two that I had not thought of before. Aside from the basic stuff they have been learning over the years they also learned to never touch a doorknob with the palm of your hand but to tap slightly with the back of your hand. The reasoning behind this is that a person's natural reaction is to close the hand. Also, if you are trapped in a room and have already covered the opening to the door near the floor, use anything to make noise such as banging on any object in the room with another object. The reasoning behind this is it may become hard to use your voice as the smoke fills the room. Making noise might help the firefighters find you.

After a small demonstration where the boys had to practice finding out if the door was hot and then army crawling out of the room they took us down to the Dispatch Room. It was a special room people are not allowed to go into but they allowed us to enter and see all of the screens and equipment. It was a really NEAT room. After that they took us down to see the firefighter's pole and the firetrucks. They all got to take turns sitting in the drivers seat and Peter even got to put on one of the gigantic jackets. It was hilarous to see how much he drowned in it. The boys thought the truck was the coolest thing ever.

Just when we thought the tour was over they took us out to a simulation truck. The inside was decorated just like a small house. There was a small kitchen and a first and second floor. They talked about fire safety in the kitchen and then they each got to crawl through the first floor with the smoke machine on. After that they got to climb to the second level and then climb down the chain ladder out of the truck. All of the boys had so much fun doing that one. One interesting thing I noticed around the firestation was that the firefighters were all Japanese and they were all super fit. Even those that were working out all stopped to wave to the boys. I loved being able to share this experience with Peter.