THE SOUTH POLE / ANTARCTIC / MCMURDO STATION FIRE DEPARTMENT - 1999
The South Pole / Antarctic / McMurdo Station Fire Department - 1999
Typed up by Peter Szerlag on May 4, 1999
Antarctica is the continent which emcompasses the South Pole. There are a handful of scientific communities based in Antarctica, with the largest of them being the USA's McMurdoo Station.
Fire protection at McMurdoo Station is provided from 2 fire stations. The main fire station is located in the town area. The 2nd station is at the airfield location and it is only manned in the summer.
For detailed info on operating conditions for the McMudo Station firefighters you should go to the www.firehouse.com site, select "forums", then select "Meet and Greet", then look for a post from turbotim 66 on April 18, 1999.
A brief synopsis of the FD shows - in the summer, 44 firefighters plus one chief (this includes 2 captains and 7 lieutenants) staff the FD - they work 24 hours on duty followed by 24 hours off duty - typically ?6 people will be on duty at each fire station. During the winter, there are only a total of 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, and 8 firefighters working at McMurdo Station. Firefighters starting pay is $575 per week, plus free housing, and a 14% bonus upon completion of their contract.
Fire apparatus includes 2 Pierce pumpers, one 3500 gallon water carrier, two ambulances, and airport rigs. A typical response to a structure fire will be one pumper (staffed by 1 lieutenant and 2 firefighters) plus one tanker (staffed by 1 firefighter). Backup is provided by the 2nd pumper staffed by off duty firefighters who have been paged back to the station.
Initial structural fire attack operations proceed this way - Officer and nozzle man proceed into structure - engineer starts generator on engine and gets water circulating to prevent freezeup - engineer of tanker runs supply line to first due pumper and then packs up and assists on fire attack - 2nd due pumper arrives and is operated by 2nd engineer if located at a distance from the first pumper - otherwise, 1 engineer runs all three units and the other firefighters do the interior fire attack.
Dispatching during the summer is done by four fire department dispatchers who work 8 hour shifts. During the winter, 1 dispatcher works from 8AM to 530PM Monday thru Saturday. At other times during the winter, firefighters at the fire station do their own dispatch work. (I know that the Navy had repeaters at 140Mhz in operation in the South Pole area about 10 years ago). 911 service is available and all buildings have fire detection or fire alarm systems which are directly connected to the fire dispatch center.
Apparatus - E1 - E2 - WT3 - A - A
E1 - Pierce
E2 - Pierce
Tanker 3 - 3500 gallons
Ambulance 1
Ambulance 2
Red 1 - Primary aircrash rig has 1200 gallons of
Petroseal
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General Description of McMurdo Station
The summer population ranges from 1000 to 1500 people. In the winter, only 200 people will remain at the site. The most hazardous location is Building 155 which houses the galley, dormitories for 150 people, the laundry, the library, TV station, radio station, general store, offices (and is occupied 24 hours per day). No permanent buildings are allowed due to an international treaty. Therefore, all buildings are constructed of steel and wood. Hydrants are available. Satellite tracking is also conducted at McMurdoo Station for launches from Vandenburg AFB and other rocket launch sites.
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Aircraft Operations
During the winter, no aircraft operations occur at McMurdoo Station due to the stormy weather conditions. During the summer, 3 different airfield locations are used to support C130 and Twin Otter aircraft. The three summer landing fields are - Ross Sea Ice Field, Willy Field (snow pack), and Pegasus Runway (on the permanent ice shelf). The ice runway melts each summer and all operations shift to the Willy Field. All buildings used at the airfield are mounted on skis to facilitate their transfer from field to field. The Pegasus Field can land heavy cargo planes.
Quantas Airlines from New Zealand conducts sightseeing flights over Antarctica on a semi-regular basis. 747 jetliners are flown at a minimum altitude for 13.5 hour flights. Visibility over the frozen terrain ranges up to 100 miles. Emergency Cold Weather survival suits are provided for all souls on board for each flight. When the aircraft is south of 60 degrees latitude, they receive flight control directions from McMurdo Air Traffic Control Center (Mac Center). Radio communications on the HF freqs is not very reliable so extensive use is made of data links and sat phones. When in radio range of McMurdoo Station, regular VHF-AM aviation high band frequencies are used. In 1979 a sightseeing DC10 hit Mount Erabas with the loss of 257 souls.
Aircrash Rescue Vehicles - 1999
see photos below
Red 1 - 4 door Chiefton - tracked - 7 forward gears and 4 reverse gears - seating for 5 people - 1,200 gallons of premixed Petroseal foam - monitor on top - can pump and roll - four 27 pound PKP fire extinguishers (?Purple K - ?potassium bicarbonate)
Red 2 - 2 door Chiefton - tracked - automatic transmission - seats for 3 - 122 gals premix petroseal foam - monitor on top - cannot pump and roll - four 27lb PKP extings
Red 3 + Red 4 - 4 door Nodwell - tracked - automatic - seats 4 - 300 gallon premixed petroseal foam - 1500 pounds twin agent dry chemical system - 2 hose reels with 300 feet of hose each
Red 5 - 3 door Nodwell - tracked - automatic - seats 3 - 3,000 pounds of PKP - 2 hose reels with 200 feet of hose on each
Winter 1999 Crew (see photo below)
Captain Durant Cephers
A Shift - Lieut Tobi Anderson - Eng Craig Sears - FF John Ackley - FF Matt Mechem - FF Randy Weinmeister
B Shift - Lieut Keith Schmidt - Eng Tim Foster - FF Jose Garcia - FF George Lampman - FF Corky Self
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July 11, 1999 - the US military does an air drop of medical supplies and equipment to the Antarctic Station after a female employee finds a lump in her breast - 41 employees at the site now - continuous total darkness precludes an aircraft landing in the extreme cold - ground parties have only 7 minutes to recover the dropped items due to the fact that the extreme cold will destroy the medicines very quickly.
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For a historical photo of McMurdo aircrash rigs working at a ?1982 structure fire please see �Photo 1� and �Photo 2�
More Photographs
�Just Another Day At The Beach�
� Antarctica Firefighter/Engineer Tim Foster's Homepage�
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Here is another website with some info about the Antarctica FD - please click on "And What Is He Doing In Antarctica?" - �Tim Meehan's Webpage�
And here is info about the fire team at the Australian Casey Station - �Casey Station Fire Team�
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Written - 5/99 Photos Added - 5/9/99 - 5/23/99 - 6/3/99 - All photos (except the historical 1982 items) are by Turbo Tim 66 Foster of the Antarctica Fire Department.
6/16/99 - added link to Casey Fire team and Tim Meehans Page
11Jan2000 - radio freqs link added
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- since November 1999
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