Students learn about fire service

Fire-fighters at Hopwood Hall College

Seventeen students from the Uniformed Public Services (UPS) Department at Hopwood Hall College were given an up-close demonstration of state-of-the-art fire appliances by a familiar crew from their local fire service.

The interactive demonstration was organised by Steve Marsden who is an Operational Fire Fighter for Green Watch, Heywood. Mr Marsden is also known to the students as a part-time lecturer on the UPS course, teaching specialist units such as the ‘dealing with major incidents’ unit that these students are currently studying.

Students saw a fire appliance and a specialist water incident unit; this is only used for incidents involving water, ice, mud and any kind of rescues (both animal and human) associated with these problems.

The visit was extra special, because a former student was also on the crew; Scott Ellidge, 25, achieved his dream of becoming a fire-fighter after completing his UPS course at the College in 2002.

The crews interacted with the students and carried out drills including building an improvised dam and filling this with water, then trying out some of the specialist water dry suits to see how they aid the fire-fighters while they work in water. The students then tried on some of the fire-fighting uniform and then ran out hose and sprayed water in jet and spray form. They were then shown the hydraulic cutting equipment and breathing apparatus sets. A new infrared camera was also given a try by the students.

Student Luke White explains some of the activities: “First of all the fire fighters introduced themselves, split us up into two teams and supplied us with equipment such as a ladder, rope and a waterproof tarpaulin to build a dam and the losers would get wet.

“My friend Ryan also dressed up in the water rescue gear and got into one of the dams to understand how cold it can get even on a hot day.

“Overall it was a great day and enjoyed learning about the service I want to go in to and getting all of my questions answered by the professionals.”